Iran's Climate is Detrimental to Human Rights

Climate change is creating an ever increasingly greater impact on human rights, and to say otherwise would be foolish. The world's emphasis on commercial and corporate success and how we can exploit the earth's resources to yield the most profit is driving life, as we know it, farther and farther away. The practices degrading the health of our environment are also degrading the health of humankind, and endangering basic human rights. Read more about the correlation here:

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/ClimateChangeHumanRightsIssue.aspx

The air quality in Iran is so poor due to the amount of pollutants in the air that are emitted from vehicles and industrial buildings. The city of Tehran is one of the most polluted in the world, and  there were so many cases of respiratory illness that the city governments finally had to implement air pollution control programs (Wikipedia).  This raises the question of whether our society's practices are doing more harm to us than good? We know that they are causing harm to the planet and altering the climate, but are we placing enough emphasis on how such industrial acts are impacting the human species?

(This above image depicts the horrible smog and pollution in Tehran. Photo courtesy of: http://www.tehrantimes.com/News/11037/13_13-4.jpg)
Iran's focus on rampant expansion of industry and agriculture have destroyed much of the country's resources. Of the limited water supply Iran has, much of it is contaminated by runoff from industrial and waste. Without total access to clean air and clean water, how can the basic human right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being be met for the people of Iran? Climate change is leading to an infringement of human rights all over the world, especially the places where the change is most notable, for example, small islands, where the rising sea levels that could potentially destroy the homes of the island's inhabitants. These people aren't even the ones benefitting from the industrial practices and services that are producing the harmful effects that are destroying their homes. I don't think many of the people in Western countries realize how detrimental the practices of our production and consumption affect those who exist beyond our scope of knowledge.
Farish Noor, in Beyond Eurocentrism, highlights how "the Western world continues to think of itself as the centre of not only the world, but perhaps even the universe" (p.51). Ethnocentrism occurs when people tend to view the world and their surroundings through their own cultural perspectives (Noor, p. 51). Moreover, people of Western nations tend to think that their cultural beliefs and values can equate to global values and beliefs, because we view ourselves as superior to non-Western nations. Noor reveals the "reverse of ethnocentrism" that he coins with the term "essentialism" (p. 52). Societies that feel threatened by Western countries imperialism and imposition of such culture and beliefs are adopting the notion of "culturally-specific, exclusive values which are essential to their identity and need for protection" (Noor, p.52). These notions are being used by some societies, like Asian countries for example, to justify inattention to human rights. Many of the ideals present in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights were rooted in Western thought and failed to include the voice of non-Western countries. However, Noor reveals how similar values and ideals were present for centuries in Asian countries, though they had more religious roots as opposed to secular. I think that Noor was trying break Western people and societies out of their bubble, and out of a way of thinking that anything non-Western was inferior. Thinking with a eurocentric mode of thought in a multi-cultural world doesn't make sense. I think that the world cannot continue to go on as it has, with a lack of multi-cultural understanding and cooperation. Western and non-Western nations need to come together and determine a way for human rights to be realistically achieved on a global level.