An Introduction to the Rights of the Lakes Series
The Great Lakes are admired as beautiful scenery. They are vacation spots and something pretty to enjoy as we pass on our way to somewhere else. They are something most of us take for granted. I grew up on the shores of Lake Huron, and did I ever take those waters for granted.
Framing the Great Lakes as scenery is dangerous. Let me explain why. The Great Lakes are not a backdrop to life in this region. They are life in this region. They hold 21% of the world’s surface freshwater and 84% of the surface freshwater in North America. They supply drinking water to more than 40 million people throughout eight states and two Canadian provinces. They shape our weather, our food, our economies, our histories, and our bodies. And right now, they are under sustained, coordinated pressure—if not an outright attack.
This series exists because the threats facing the Great Lakes are vast. And they are not accidents or misunderstandings. They are the predictable outcome of a system that treats water as a commodity to be privately owned and extracted rather than a living system to be protected. One that belongs to all of us. Let’s talk about a few.
Data centers are targeting us because they want and need our water. But they will drain aquifers faster than they can recharge, not to mention, contaminate them. Pipelines like Line 5 risk catastrophic contamination for private profit. Industrial pollution is normalized as “economic development” while algal blooms are becoming increasingly dangerous to our ecosystem. Algal blooms are even growing in Lake Superior for the first time in history. And our regulatory agencies? They are being captured by the very industries they are meant to oversee. And none of this is random. Corporate personhood has usurped actual personhood thanks to a deliberate misinterpretation of the 14th Amendment way back in 1886.
Like power, environmental destruction follows patterns. And also like power, it concentrates upward while the consequences spread outward—into our communities, our bodies, and our future.
The Great Lakes Basin Initiative and our Rights of the Lakes series is not a campaign. It’s not a single issue. And it’s not about nostalgia for a past that never existed. It’s about understanding how we arrived here, who benefits from the current system, and why incremental fixes are no longer enough. The threat is too great.
Each part of this series, both written and podcast form, corresponds to focused work. We will move from awareness to accountability. From naming threats to understanding systems. From reverence to resistance. From protection to legal recognition through Rights of the Lakes that follows the Rights of Nature framework. And we have partnered with the organization that is responsible for bringing Rights of Nature legislation to the world: Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF).
This is not about fear, even though you should be afraid of inaction to stop the threats. It’s about clarity. It’s about our future. You cannot defend something unless you understand what’s being done to it, and why. People don’t protect what they’ve been condition to believe is infinite. We’re constantly told that the Great Lakes are vast, and there is enough water for all of us and they will never run out. This is a deliberate fallacy. And you don’t change the system perpetuating this fallacy by pretending it’s broken when it’s doing exactly what it was designed to do.
The Great Lakes are alive. They are finite. And they are depending on us.
This series is an invitation to look directly at what’s happening throughout the basin we call home, and not as spectators, but as participants. Because whether we acknowledge it or not, we are already part of the story. The only question is whether we step into it consciously.
Next: Let’s talk about how Water is Not a Commodity (coming soon)
View the Whole Series: Rights of the Lakes
Rights of the Lakes podcast coming soon in partnership with CELDF.
Help support our Great Lakes Basin Initiative by donating to our Love Where You Live Foundation. You can also shop our latest drop. All proceeds help support our efforts with protecting the Great Lakes and bringing Rights of the Lakes legislation to the entirety of the Great Lakes Basin Region. Note: clicking the above links in this paragraph will redirect you off this site.
