I first issued the following article in 2005. Since that time, planning groups such as the American Planning Association, and other Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that are involved in implementing sustainable development across the nation, vigorously deny that their programs have anything to do with the United Nations or Agenda 21. And they have gone on the attack through a variety of hit pieces and articles in major news magazines to label those of us fighting Agenda 21 as just kooky conspiracy theorists. Their main argument is that Agenda 21 is a “soft law” policy that has no enforcement capability. “It’s just voluntary,” they insist over and over again. “There are no blue helmeted troops at city hall,” they sarcastically proclaim. But who needs UN troops when they have the NGO shock troops? The following article clearly shows how they target and enlist local mayors to “voluntarily” thrust their agenda on the hapless, voiceless citizens of their communities. Of course, once the mayors “voluntarily” signed these agreements, the NGO storm troopers were there to assure they kept their promise. This is how it’s done. TAD
In June 2005, the city of San Francisco was the site of an international conference called “World Environment Day.” But the agenda of this conference was much bigger than just another “hippy dance” in the park. This meeting of the global elite had a specific target and an agenda with teeth. The goal was the full implementation of the UN’s Agenda 21 policy and Sustainable Development. This time, the target audience was our nation’s mayors. The UN’s new tactic on full display at this conference is to ignore federal and state governments and go straight to the roots of American society. Think globally — act locally.
As part of their participation in the conference, mayors were pressed to commit their communities to specific legislative and policy goals by signing a slate of United Nations accords. Two documents were presented for the mayors’ signatures.
The first document was called the “Green Cities Declaration,” a statement of principles which set the agenda for the mayors’ assigned task. It says, in part, “Believing as Mayors of cities around the globe, we have a unique opportunity to provide leadership to develop truly sustainable urban centers based on culturally and economically appropriate local actions.” The Declaration was amazingly bold in that it details exactly how the UN intends to implement a very specific agenda in every town and city in the nation. The document includes lots of rhetoric about the need to curtail greenhouse gases and preserve resources. But the final line of the Green Cities Declaration was the point of the whole affair: “Signatory cities shall work to implement the following Urban Environment Accords. Each year cities shall pick three actions to adopt as policies or laws.”
The raw meat of the agenda was outlined in detail in the second document, called the “Urban Environment Accords.” The Accords include exactly 21 specific actions (as in Agenda 21) for the mayors to take, controlled by a timetable for implementation.
Here’s a quick look at a few of the 21 agenda actions called for. Under the topic of energy, action item number one calls for mayors to implement a policy to increase the use of “renewable” energy by 10 percent within seven years. Renewable energy includes solar and wind power.
Not stated in the UN documents is the fact that in order to meet the goal, a community would have to reserve thousands of acres of land to set up expensive solar panels or even more land for windmills. Consider that it takes a current 50 megawatt gas-fired generating plant about 2-5 acres of land to produce its power. To create that same amount of power through the use of solar panels would require at least 1,000 acres. Using windmills to generate 50 megawatts would require over 4,000 acres of land, while chopping up birds and creating a deafening roar. The cost of such “alternative” energy to the community would be vastly prohibitive. Yet, such unworkable ideas are the environmentally-correct orders of the day that the mayors were being urged to follow.
Energy actions two and three deal with the issue of reducing energy consumption. Both of these are backdoor sneak attacks by the UN to enforce the discredited Kyoto Global Warming Treaty, which President Bush refused to implement. Kyoto would force the United States to reduce its energy consumption by at least 30 percent, forcing energy shortages and severely damaging the nation’s economy. Kyoto is the centerpiece of the UN’s drive to control the world economy and redistribute wealth to Third World nations. It would do nothing to help the environment. Yet, the mayors are being pushed to help implement this destructive treaty city-by-city.
Perhaps the most egregious action offered in the Urban Environmental Accords deals with the topic of water. Action number 20 calls for adoption and implementation of a policy to reduce individual water consumption by 10 percent by 2020. Interestingly, the UN begins by stating, “Cities with potable water consumption greater than 100 liters per capita per day will adopt and implement policies to reduce consumption by 10 percent by 2015.”
One must be aware that 100 liters equals about 26 gallons per person, per day. According to the UN, each person should only have 10 percent less than 26 gallons each day to drink, bathe, flush toilets, wash clothes, water lawns, wash dishes, cook, and more.
However, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, Americans need about 100 GALLONS per day to perform these basic functions. The use of the 100 LITERS vs. 100 GALLONS is a direct attempt to mislead and actually cut water consumption by 75 percent.
Consider also that there is no specific water shortage in the United States. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, annual water withdrawal across the nation is about 407 billion gallons, while consumption (including evaporation and plant use, is about 94 billion gallons. Such restrictions, as outlined in the Urban Environment Accords, are really nothing more than a major campaign by the UN to control water consumption. Yet, the nation’s mayors are being pushed to impose policies to take away our free use of water. Water is not an international issue — but a very local one.
The rest of the Accords deal with a variety of subjects including waste reduction, recycling, transportation, health, and nature. Perhaps the most blatant promise of action is Action number sixteen, in which the mayors are supposed to agree to “Every year identify three products, chemicals, or compounds that are used within your city that represents the greatest risk to human health and adopt a law to eliminate their sale and use in the city.”
There you have it. Every year, our nation’s mayors are to promise to ban something! What if there isn’t a “chemical or compound” that poses a risk? Gotta ban something anyway. That’s not an idle threat. In the 1990’s, Anchorage, Alaska, had some of the most pristine water in the nation. It had no pollution. Yet, the Federal Government ordered the city to meet strict federal clean water standards that required it to remove a certain percentage of pollution. In order to meet those requirements, Anchorage was forced to dump fish parts into its pristine water so that it could then clean out the required quotas. Your city’s mayor may have to ban the ink in your fountain pen to meet his quota — and ban it he will.
And what is the mayor’s reward for destroying private property rights, increasing energy costs on less consumption, and banning something useful every year? He gets green stars. That’s right. According to UN documents, if your mayor can complete 8-11 of the prescribed 21 actions, the town will get a green star and the designation, “Local Sustainable City.” 12-17 actions completed will garner two green stars and the designation, “National Sustainable City.” 15-18 actions completed will bring in three green stars and the title “Regional Sustainable City.” Finally, the energizer bunny mayor who gets 19-21 actions completed will get a full four green stars and the ultimate designation of “Global Sustainable City.” Certainly he or she will also get a plaque and get to sit at the head table at the next UN Sustainable Development conference.
In the San Francisco summit, the mayors were wooed by the elite, from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, to Maurice Strong, to Senator Diane Feinstein, to Hollywood activists Robert Redford and Martin Sheen, to chimp master Jane Goodall. All the usual suspects were there to press the flesh and push the agenda. Businesses like Mitsubishi, which hopes to make huge profits from green industry with its government subsidies and taxpayer grants, helped pay for the event. The news media was well represented too, not in a journalistic role to report the news, but as full-fledged sponsors helping to spread their own brand of propaganda. All understood that a new governing elite, elected by no one, answerable to their own set of standards, is being created for the care and feeding of us all. With the right contacts and the proper show of public spirit, there are riches and power to be created. Even for your local mayor.
Sustainable Development is truly stunning in its magnitude to transform the world into feudal-like governance by making nature the central organizing principle for our economy and society. It is a scheme fueled by unsound science and discredited economics that can only lead modern society down the road to a new Dark Age. It is a policy of banning goods and regulating and controlling human action. It is systematically implemented through the creation of non-elected visioning boards and planning commissions. There is no place in the Sustainable world for individual thought, private property, or free enterprise. It is the exact opposite of the free society envisioned by this nation’s founders.
Even before the San Francisco conference, the UN’s influence over the nation’s mayors had been felt as 132 U.S. mayors moved to implement the Kyoto Treaty in defiance of the Bush Administration’s rejection of it. Moreover, the treaty was the centerpiece of the agenda for the national meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, slated for Chicago just one week after the San Francisco meeting. Think globally and act locally is no longer just a slogan on the back of a Volvo. It’s a well-entrenched national policy bleeding down into your local community, carried there by Judas goats who have been elected by you.
America’s mayors are the elected representatives closest to the people. They are the ones that our founders intended to have the most influence over our daily lives. If the UN succeeds in its efforts to enforce Sustainable Development policy through our mayors, the process will accelerate at an astounding rate and locally-controlled government will cease to exist. But signs, adorned with green stars, will certainly greet us at every city limit line as the inhabitants, stripped of their property rights, buried under huge tax burdens, and struggling under reduced energy flow, shuffle on as their proud mayor gleams in the global limelight under the banner “think globally and act locally.”
Tom DeWeese is one of the nation’s leading advocates of individual liberty, free enterprise, private property rights, personal privacy, back-to-basics education and American sovereignty and independence. Go to americanpolicy.org for more information
