Good grief. Jackson, Wyo. — the Tetons are my favorite place in the world — just approved a “rights of nature” resolution. It includes everything that exists. From the Buckrail story:
On Monday, July 1, the Town of Jackson passed a resolution to recognize and uphold the rights of nature.
The Town Council defined nature as “the physical world and everything in it, including plants, animals, mountains, rivers and other features and products of the earth.”
This is nonsense. If everything has rights, nothing does really. And it’s a resolution, not an ordinance, meaning it has no legal enforceability. This is just virtue signaling.
So, wise city councilors: Do the plants in the ponds have a right not to be eaten by the moose? Do grubs have a right not to be consumed by black bears? Heck, do we have a right not to be killed by grizzlies?
More germane to human uses of the magnificent beauty that is Jackson and the Tetons, do the trees have a right not to be cut down? If not, why not?
If so, let’s grandfather this resolution and allow those wonderful ski slopes that bring so much revenue into the town to return to their natural state as a forest on the mountain, as is, apparently, their inherent right!