Utah lawmakers advanced a bill this week to prevent the granting of inherent rights to nature, a movement gaining momentum among environmental activists.
House Bill 249, the “Utah Legal Personhood Amendments,” declares that only mankind may enjoy the legal rights and obligations of personhood. The Utah House passed the bill on Tuesday; it now faces consideration by the Senate.
The bill expressly prohibits the granting of legal personhood to any artificial intelligence, inanimate object, body of water, land, real property, atmospheric gas, astronomical object, weather, plant, nonhuman animal, and “any other member of a taxonomic domain that is not a human being.”
Republican State Rep. Walt Brooks brought forth the bill amid efforts by environmental activists to leverage current U.S. law to grant legal personhood to the Great Salt Lake.
Brooks explained during the House floor vote…
