Why We Call Them Human Rights

On this episode of What It Means to Be Human, Wesley J. Smith examines a new extreme environmentalism that seeks to grant equal rights to . . . Nature. Yes, Nature. "Nature rights" have just been embodied as the highest law of the land in Ecuador's newly ratified constitution. Rather than establishing environmental protections as a human duty, there is now a self-demotion of humankind to merely one among the billions of life forms on Earth, no more worthy of protection than any other part of the natural world. What is the potential harm to human welfare? Listen in as Wesley J. Smith explains how the establishment of "Nature rights" is the culmination of 2008 as one of the most radical anti-human exceptionalism years in recent history. For more information, read Wesley J. Smith's article in The Weekly Standard here.