This is an extended version of the eight categories of the Basic Human Dignity Needs Holistic Index, with over 600 sub-categories.
Basic Human Dignity Needs include:
ENVIRONMENT - Nat'l Pollution & Government Actions
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From: www.enn.com
French Cabinet approves plan for a new environmental charter
26 June 2003
By Christine Ollivier, Associated Press
PARIS -- France's Cabinet approved a plan Wednesday that would modify the constitution to give environmental protection as much weight as human rights.
President Jacques Chirac is behind the environment charter, an attempt to make France a world leader in promoting environmental concerns. The bill is
expected to go before parliament this fall.
Chirac called the Cabinet's backing of the plan "an historic advance."
"A pioneer among major countries, France must from now on stand as an example," Chirac said in the Cabinet meeting, quoted by government spokesman
Jean-Francois Cope.
The charter has 10 articles. The first says that "everyone has the right to live in an environment that is balanced and healthy." The second says people have
the duty to "preserve and improve" the natural world.
The charter also says that people must pay damages for harming the environment.
Under current law, for example, if there is an oil spill, fishers can claim damages if their nets are ruined or sales are hit. But under the new charter, polluters
would also be financially responsible for soiled beaches and slick-covered birds.
If the bill is passed, the preamble of the national constitution would be changed to mention the new environment charter. It would be the first time the
preamble -- the Constitution's overarching philosophical statement -- has been modified since the document went into effect with the start of the Fifth
Republic in 1958.
The charter would then be on equal footing with France's landmark 1789 human rights document, the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen."
The most contentious article in the new charter says there is a "principle of precaution" that would oblige officials to take temporary measures to halt
practices that may or may not be risky.
Ernest-Antoine Seilliere, president of France's powerful group of business leaders, Medef, has worried the principle could make innovative companies afraid
of taking risks and cause investors to flee France.
Before the plan can take effect, it must either be put to the French in a referendum or approved by both houses of parliament in a joint session.
Source: Associated Press
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Report Links Bush Administration Anti-Environmental Policies to Corporate Contributions
From Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund
Wednesday, September 25, 2002
WASHINGTON, DC -- In a report released today, Earthjustice and Public Campaign established in detail for the first time the strong correlation between big
corporate contributions to the Bush-Cheney campaign and Republican National Committee (RNC) and Bush administration policy paybacks that benefit
these interests.
"These contributions and policy paybacks tell the story of how corporate interests brought the Bush administration to power so that it could weaken the law to benefit the companies' bottom line," the groups said. The report, entitled PAYBACKS, makes an accounting of industrial contributors to the Bush-Cheney campaign and the industry-friendly policies that have become the regular order of business since President Bush took office. The report also names some of the top environmental officials within the administration who built their careers as lawyers and lobbyists for the industries they are now in charge of regulating.
"The Bush administration's anti-environmental agenda doesn't't just appear to be made-to-order for polluting industry interests. It is," conclude Earthjustice and Public Campaign in PAYBACKS. "Industries now reaping the benefits of an administration intent on eliminating important environmental and public health safeguards are the same ones that helped underwrite the Bush-Cheney campaign and the RNC with more than $44 million in contributions."
"Over thirty years of progress in addressing environmental problems - spurred by public servants and private individuals of all political persuasions - is being squandered by this administration," said Buck Parker, executive director of Earthjustice. "The Bush administration is giving away our nation's clean water and air, national forests, and public lands to its corporate contributors."
"Because you have to pay to play in the current campaign finance system, anti-environmental special interests with plenty of cash see all their policy wishes granted. Meanwhile, the public's interest in a healthy environment is ignored," said Nick Nyhart of Public Campaign.
The report, which is available on the web, focuses on the investments made by timber, mining, oil and gas, coal-burning utilities, chemical, and other manufacturing interests. PAYBACKS shows how these investments resulted in handsome returns for polluting and resource extractive industries in the form of anti-environmental policy decisions, often facilitated by Bush administration political appointees who are former industry lawyers and lobbyists.
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Earthjustice is a nonprofit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations and communities.
Public Campaign is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to sweeping reform that aims to dramatically reduce the role of special interest money in America's elections and the influence of big contributors in American politics.
For more information, contact:
Brian Smith
Communications
Earthjustice
510-550-6700
bsmith@yahoo.com
Web site: http://www.earthjustice.org
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