The Air Shouldn’t Require Purifiers
When people hear the phrase human rights, they often picture courtrooms, war zones, and political speeches. But human rights aren’t abstract. They’re practical, personal, and of everyday concern. Britannica defines human rights as rights that belong to an individual simply by virtue of being human. The United Nations took it further in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, recognizing the “equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family” as the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace.
It’s a powerful statement. But here’s the question that haunts me: What happens when someone’s profit depends on your rights being violated? The answer lies in the details where the struggles of real-world human rights live. The first book in the Rightfully Mine series, The Water Factor, explores whether water, an essential of life, should be treated as a human right or as a commodity, bottled and traded on Wall Street.
In the newly released novel Antheia in the Thorns, the focus shifts to something we rarely think about until it’s taken from us–the air we breathe. In the novel, anthropologist-turned-housewife, Jennifer Russo, and an Antheia activist, Brian Adakai, fight a toxic threat most people have never heard of: Petroleum coke (petcoke)–a dirty byproduct of oil refining. Though rarely used in the U.S., petcoke often replaces coal in energy plants because it’s cheaper to produce and burns at a higher BTU. It’s also more polluting. Petcoke is shipped around the world, where it’s stored in dusty piles that affect air quality. U.S. refineries are the largest producers of petcoke, yet it is treated by Congress as someone else’s problem.
The damage doesn’t show up on corporate balance sheets. It shows up in smog and in people with asthma, allergies, chronic coughs, and in children who can’t run without wheezing or fall into ash piles to die while playing. It devastates communities that don’t have the political power to stop it. That is why petcoke isn’t just an environmental issue. It’s a human rights issue.
If the right to life means anything, shouldn’t it include the right to breathe air that won’t harm you? If freedom means anything, doesn’t it include freedom from pollution you never consented to? And if justice means anything, doesn’t it require environmental laws so corporations can’t hide behind loopholes and legal intimidation? Weakening the EPA and FDA is a travesty we shouldn’t allow.
In Antheia in the Thorns, Jennifer and Brian aren’t fighting a vague evil. They’re fighting against people with names. Oil entrepreneur Abdul Hammed Dillinger has built an empire on profit-first thinking. He has a legal shield in his attorneys, Amy Stuart and her lover, Jennifer’s husband, Jason Russo. They don’t need to win on truth. They only need to win by exhausting their opponents. To do so, they delay, threaten, and bury their opposition in paperwork. They manipulate the system until those fighting back are broke, discredited, or afraid.
This is how human rights are defeated in the modern world. It’s not always with violence, but more often with strategy. And that’s why I wrote this book. Because beneath the legal maneuvering and corporate shields is something more intimate: betrayal, grief, and the moment a woman realizes she has nothing more to lose. Jennifer isn’t a superhero. She’s a wife, a mother, a woman who trusted the wrong people. But when the air itself becomes dangerous, she discovers that courage isn’t about strength. It’s about the refusal to be silenced. “No! Our lungs are not negotiable.”
If you believe clean air shouldn’t require a purifier, if you’ve ever felt outmatched by systems designed to wear people down, if you’ve ever wondered what it takes to stand up when standing up costs everything, then this story is for you.
The ebook and paperback versions of Antheia in the Thorns are currently on Amazon at an introductory price. An audiobook will follow in a few months. If you decide to delve into the story, an honest review helps more than most people realize. It’s the most powerful way to help the truth reach new readers.
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Art can be purchased on my website and shipped free throughout the continental U.S. Contact me at marilynne@eichingerfineart.com with questions.
