Speaker 1: Ahoy, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and
Speaker 1: there's Chuck, and I am a born and raised Toledo
Speaker 1: win So I am in a very peculiar position to
Speaker 1: speak about this peculiar meaning special in every way, and
Speaker 1: I get to show off my slack. Yeah you pink boy,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna kick back and just listen. Did you ever
Speaker 1: get that key to the city? No, I have not,
Speaker 1: and it bothers me every night while I'm trying to sleep.
Speaker 1: Weren't you offered or No? There was a Toledo and
Speaker 1: I don't remember his name, but he was a dedicated stuff.
Speaker 1: You should know listener some years back who said I
Speaker 1: am going to get Josh the key to the city,
Speaker 1: and you too. I believe um. He was working very
Speaker 1: hard to make it happen, got in touch with some
Speaker 1: local politicians I think was brushed off, and then you
Speaker 1: know called it today. So that moment happens where like
Speaker 1: you and I are standing at the hotel check in
Speaker 1: and they look at you and they go, are you
Speaker 1: going any two keys? And you look at me and
Speaker 1: I'm like, I wouldn't mind a key? Sure, yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess too. But but this will be on a podium
Speaker 1: with the mayor. Well, maybe I think that you should
Speaker 1: have the key and and cut with the giant scissors. Okay,
Speaker 1: and I'll just be there and support you. Well either way.
Speaker 1: I mean I would be more than happy to share
Speaker 1: the key to the city with you. I mean everything
Speaker 1: that we've done with stuff you should know we've done together.
Speaker 1: So yeah, but I'm not but you could be an
Speaker 1: honorary citizen too. Let's move on from this petty dispute. Wait,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, I'm not done yet. All right, we
Speaker 1: are talking about Toledo today because Toledo, my hometown, did
Speaker 1: something pretty amazing a few years back, and as far
Speaker 1: as I can tell, they are still very much working
Speaker 1: on it. Right. I love this idea and spirit. The
Speaker 1: Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature a k a.
Speaker 1: GARN is a network of organizations and people from more
Speaker 1: than a hundred different countries that are are actually pushing
Speaker 1: for legals, bodies, and systems around the world to recognize
Speaker 1: nature and ecosystems as having rights. Yes, which you're like, what,
Speaker 1: that's stupid. Consider this. Corporations are considered artificial people under
Speaker 1: the law. They have a lot of the same rights. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they have a lot of the same rights as you
Speaker 1: and me. So if corporations can have personal rights, why
Speaker 1: shouldn't nature. It makes even more sense to me than
Speaker 1: a corporation having personal rights. And that's kind of the
Speaker 1: push and the the angle that people are coming from
Speaker 1: is like, look, this thing is being harmed, and sometimes
Speaker 1: it can be really difficult to show you have standing
Speaker 1: which means you are being directly harmed by say, polluting
Speaker 1: into like erie um. And it would be much easier
Speaker 1: to like get something done through the courts if this
Speaker 1: thing that was actually suffering the harm the body of waters,
Speaker 1: say like like yerie had those rights, because then you
Speaker 1: could see on its behalf in court. Yeah. I love
Speaker 1: this idea, like where the ecosystem is the actual injured party,
Speaker 1: but when it clearly is. But yeah, because it is
Speaker 1: Ecuador has done this or that they were the first
Speaker 1: country to recognize rights of nature in their actual constitution
Speaker 1: in two thousand eight. Uh and it is quote it
Speaker 1: means nature has quote the right to exist, persist, to
Speaker 1: maintain and regenerate its vital cycles. It seems like a
Speaker 1: no brainer. No, it really unforced. Nature has the right
Speaker 1: to do that. Ye oh, Bolivia as well in two
Speaker 1: thousand ten with their Universal Declaration of the Rights of
Speaker 1: Mother Earth was adopted there, so that this is actually
Speaker 1: happening at places in the world. Yeah, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Toledo,
Speaker 1: Ohio basically are the leaders in this, and so the
Speaker 1: the whole thing with Toledo started um after I think
Speaker 1: in August of two thousand fourteen, there was a terrible
Speaker 1: incident where there was a cyanobacteria algae bloom and Ciana
Speaker 1: bacteria is very much toxic to humans, and it got
Speaker 1: into the water intake crib uh in Lake Erie that
Speaker 1: supplies Toledo with its um stock for the water that
Speaker 1: it sends through its taps too people's homes, and for
Speaker 1: three days, the people of Toledo could not bathe, they
Speaker 1: had no water to drink, they couldn't cook, they had
Speaker 1: no water all of a sudden for three days until
Speaker 1: the water company could figure out what to do about this.
Speaker 1: People are having across state lines to get bottled water.
Speaker 1: It was a nightmare. It was a mess, and that
Speaker 1: really prompted some people to get involved and be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: enough is enough. That's those algae blooms are not supposed
Speaker 1: to be happening there the result of irresponsible fertilizing practices
Speaker 1: by local industrialized agricultural groups that are polluting the lake
Speaker 1: through runoff, and we're all suffering from this. We need
Speaker 1: to figure out what to do that's right. And we'll
Speaker 1: take a break right now and talk about a great
Speaker 1: toledo In an American named Marky Miller right after this. Well,
Speaker 1: now we're on the road driving in your truck. Want
Speaker 1: to learn a thing or two from Josh dam Chuck
Speaker 1: stuff you should know, all right, all right, Josh Clark
Speaker 1: one great Toledo win. Markey Miller another great toledo In. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think between me and Markey Miller, Markey Miller should
Speaker 1: probably get the key to the city. Jamie far great
Speaker 1: to lead. And Jamie Farr was really from Toledo, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he really was. It wasn't just part of Klinger's character.
Speaker 1: He really was. He always talked about Tony Pacos, which
Speaker 1: is still around. I love it. So mar Key Miller
Speaker 1: is a long time to Ledowin, who after this water
Speaker 1: fiasco got fed up and started trying to get some answers,
Speaker 1: went to the town hall meetings, said all the things
Speaker 1: as a citizen that you can do and they like,
Speaker 1: how can we, you know, make sure this doesn't happen again,
Speaker 1: And they basically said, let's move forward about mitigation, but
Speaker 1: we don't really want to talk about what caused this
Speaker 1: in the first place, Like let's just kind of brush
Speaker 1: that under the rug. And Markey Miller said, no, not
Speaker 1: good enough yet yet. And so Markey Miller in her
Speaker 1: late twenties started attending these meetings with and getting kind
Speaker 1: of people kind of riled up on her side. And uh,
Speaker 1: they named themselves the Toledo Wins for Safe Water. And
Speaker 1: this eventually led to what's known as drawing up the
Speaker 1: Lake Eerie Bill of Rights. Handful of people saying that
Speaker 1: they're fed up and this lake, this exquisite, great lake,
Speaker 1: actually needs to be protected with its own bill of rights. Yes, um,
Speaker 1: And what one of the said things about Lake Erie
Speaker 1: is like it used to be really bad off, like
Speaker 1: it was not a thing that you want to swim in,
Speaker 1: which coincidentally was the time when I was swimming in
Speaker 1: Lake Erie as a kid. But I remember catching fish
Speaker 1: and like some guy going past out to the lake
Speaker 1: on his boat and my dad and I fishing on
Speaker 1: this channel and him being like, do not eat that
Speaker 1: like just throw it back. And I remember being like,
Speaker 1: what is this guy talking about? My dad's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we really shouldn't eat the fish out of here. Raster stripe. Right,
Speaker 1: it was still alive in my mouth. Um. But but
Speaker 1: but lake Erie got cleaned up. It was a success story.
Speaker 1: And then now it's getting repolluted again. So that makes
Speaker 1: it even more tragic, and it makes that campaign for
Speaker 1: the Lake Area Bill of Rights like even more vital.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just Markey Miller and the Toledo Wins
Speaker 1: for Safe Water who were all about protecting Lake Erie.
Speaker 1: They had to get a bunch of signatures to get
Speaker 1: a to get on a petition to have a bill
Speaker 1: introduced to be put up to a vote on how
Speaker 1: to protect Lake Eries rights. And they got I think
Speaker 1: double the amount needed of signatures to get the petition
Speaker 1: on the ballot. Easy, peasy, lemon squeeze. Everybody's on board.
Speaker 1: Everybody wants to support uh lake Erie and get it
Speaker 1: cleaned up and give it its own Like let's let's
Speaker 1: get a lawsuit going on behalf of Lake Erie. Like
Speaker 1: how cool is that? Yeah, So they get double the
Speaker 1: signatures and they knew that was step one and getting
Speaker 1: it actually to a vote would be tough. And I
Speaker 1: believe they we're up against you know who. You would
Speaker 1: think they would be up against these big industrial companies
Speaker 1: that said no, actually, that'd be really bad for us.
Speaker 1: If we couldn't pollute the lake, would be bad for
Speaker 1: our business. There was a three hundred thousand dollar anti
Speaker 1: Lee Boar campaign. Um. Even though it passed by in
Speaker 1: they came out with a victory, a very sad and
Speaker 1: short lived victory because about twelve hours later, uh an
Speaker 1: agricultural company, filed a lawsuit against the city and said
Speaker 1: this law is detrimental to our business. We got to
Speaker 1: pollute that lake, you guys right. Um. There was a guy,
Speaker 1: the judge in the case, Judge Jack Suhari, basically said, like,
Speaker 1: this is terrible. This is a terrible law that Toledo passed.
Speaker 1: Like it makes sense in its spirit, and like I
Speaker 1: respected for that, but it was really poorly written. And
Speaker 1: basically what he said was two fold. One, it's way
Speaker 1: too vague to be constitutional. He said that you could conceivably,
Speaker 1: under the law, be prosecuted for fishing in Lake Erie. Um.
Speaker 1: A second one is that Toledo extended its protections across
Speaker 1: Lake Erie. Lake Erie is shared by a bunch of
Speaker 1: different cities from Toledo to Cleveland to Buffalo, New York
Speaker 1: to Erie, Pennsylvania. They're all on Lake Erie. And this
Speaker 1: this this the law cross state boundaries and state jurisdictions,
Speaker 1: like like Toledo was the You could you could dump
Speaker 1: something in Buffalo, New York, and you could be sued
Speaker 1: in Toledo, Ohio for it because of this law. So
Speaker 1: it was an overreach, but it was a good first step.
Speaker 1: And I think it shows that the public is like
Speaker 1: on board with this. It's just that they they we
Speaker 1: need to figure out how the law needs to be
Speaker 1: written to to make it survive court challenges. Right. And
Speaker 1: also and I think, uh, I think Miller is right
Speaker 1: in in her contention that, like she said, quote, you
Speaker 1: have to redefine what it means to win. Like, I
Speaker 1: don't think they thought, well, this is it, We're done.
Speaker 1: They knew it would be short lived, they knew it
Speaker 1: would probably be overturned. But what it did was make
Speaker 1: the news. And it's one more step closer to change exactly.
Speaker 1: And so there are UM there are more UM Rights
Speaker 1: of Nature movement UM movements. I guess that are kind
Speaker 1: of popping up around the country and around the world, um,
Speaker 1: in places like Hawaii and Florida, like you would expect
Speaker 1: in Washington State. UM. And it's a I think it's
Speaker 1: a great way to to I think that's a good
Speaker 1: direction to be progressing. I think it's a it's I
Speaker 1: think it's the future. Agreed. Well, cool, Well, there's not
Speaker 1: much more to say about it right now, but who knows,
Speaker 1: we'll be talking about it hopefully in a few years.
Speaker 1: When is the law of the land across the globe.
Speaker 1: And by the way, we found this article originally on
Speaker 1: how stuff works and you can go read it there
Speaker 1: if you like. And with that short stuff is out.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio.
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