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