UN Agenda 21 - global, totalitarian “sustainability”

To highlight Cheryl Gallant's excellent effort towards raising awareness of the threat posed by UN Agenda 21, I'm bringing forward (with updated links) my January, 2012 post on the subject:
 

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A Democrat speaks to a Tea Party meeting about how UN Agenda 21 is being foisted on a largely unsuspecting public and subverting individual rights:



From the UN web page for Agenda 21:

Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human impacts on the environment. ... [Agenda 21 originated from the 1992 Rio Conference, thanks to Maurice Strong.]

Canada and Agenda 21:

Canada has signed or ratified at least 45 multilateral environmental conventions and agreements and is signatory to numerous agendas for action (e.g., Agenda 21, the Habitat Agenda, the World Summit on Sustainable Development [WSSD] Plan of Implementation, and the Kyoto Protocol) ...

Local community involvement:

Originally known as the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), today the group simply calls itself “ICLEI—Local Governments for Sustainability.”

In 1992, ICLEI was one of the groups instrumental in creating Agenda 21. The group’s mission is to push local communities to regulate the environment—and it’s having tremendous success. [Note that 30 Canadian member communities are listed]

British Columbia is using its carbon tax to bribe communities to get on its "Climate Action" programme:

“The Climate Action Revenue Incentive program will be a new conditional grant equal to what local governments pay in the carbon tax, with only one string attached – to be eligible, communities must sign onto the Climate Action Charter and commit to becoming carbon-neutral by 2012,” said Premier Campbell. “If communities do that, and publicly report on their plan and progress in meeting that goal, they will be eligible to receive a grant equal to 100 per cent of their carbon tax costs.” [Big surprise: all 176 BC communities signed on.]

Exposing UN Agenda 21

It's good to see that someone in government is concerned about the subversive UN Agenda 21.
Cheryl Gallant's recent Report from Parliament outlines those concerns and the action being taken in some quarters to combat it:

... the [United Nations] has very specific land use policies they would like to see implemented in every village, town, city, county, province and nation.  The specific plan is called United Nations Agenda 21 Sustainable Development, which has its basis in Communitarianism.  Most Canadians have heard of sustainable development, but are largely unaware of the U.N. initiative Agenda 21. A non-governmental organization headquartered in Toronto called the International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives, ICLEI, is tasked with carrying out the goals of Agenda 21 worldwide.

In a nutshell, the plan calls for government to eventually take control of all land use removing decision making from the hands of private property owners.  It is assumed people are not good stewards of their land and “the government” will do a better job if it is in total control.  Individual rights in general are to give way to the needs of communities as determined by the governing body.

Take the poll at the bottom of Gallant's report.

Elizabeth Nickson's excellent book "Eco-Fascists" (inspired by her personal experience on Salt Spring Island, BC) also deals with many of these issues.

"Smart" grids, "smart" cities, "smart" growth - "subversive, or dumb or both"

Peter Foster:

... “smart” has ... become a ubiquitous weasel word that, like “social” and “sustainable,” conceals a multitude of political dangers. 

When it comes to smart grids, smart cities and smart growth, we are dealing with concepts that are potentially subversive, or dumb, or both.  

... Technology will obviously continue to shape the city, but the dangers of “over-specification,” that is inflexible top-down design, are highlighted in a recent pamphlet, “Against the smart city”, by New York based urban designer Adam Greenfield. 

... Mr. Greenfield does a wonderful job of explaining the manifest shortcomings and dangers of the overdesigned smart city, but his critique ultimately flies off the rapid transit rails because he sees these urban monstrosities as an offshoot of the “neoliberal agenda,” a Chomskyan phrase that speaks volumes about anybody who uses it. 

... The smart city may be a cover for the moralistic city, and moralism is often a cover for power-seeking.  Indeed, the overweening ambition of “seamlessly coordinating everything” is the very model of sustainable development as conceived by the likes of Canada’s former UN mastermind Maurice Strong.

In fact, the "smart" concept reeks of U.N. Agenda 21, the sustainable development mantra, which a whole lot of "smart" bureaucrats and politicians in a whole lot of cities round the world have enthusiastically signed on to.  Subversive indeed!

All-purpose scapegoat, "climate change"

Paul Driessen:

... Sandy was “unprecedented,” the result of “weather on steroids,” various “experts” insist. “It’s global warming, stupid,” intoned Bloomberg BusinessWeek. ...

“Superstorm” Sandy killed more than 100 people, destroyed thousands of homes ...

Sandy was "unprecedented" only if you completely ignore the past:

... A 1775 hurricane killed 4,000 people in Newfoundland; an 1873 monster left 600 dead in Nova Scotia; others pummeled Canada’s Maritime Provinces in 1866, 1886, 1893, 1939, 1959, 1963 and 2003.

Manhattan got pounded in 1667 and by the Great Storm of 1693. They were followed by more behemoths in 1788, 1821, 1893, 1944, 1954 and 1992. Other “confluences of severe weather events” brought killer storms like the four-day Great Blizzard of 1888. The 1893 storm largely eradicated Hog Island, and the 1938 “Long Island Express” hit Long Island as a Category 3 hurricane with wind gusts up to 180 mph.

... Hurricane Sandy, November 2012 marked the quietest long-term hurricane period since the Civil War, with only one major hurricane strike on the U.S. mainland in seven years. This is global warming and unprecedented weather on steroids?

Meanwhile, Michael Bloomberg flogs his PlaNYC 2030 [in which "climate change" and  UN Agenda 21 (via ICLEI) figure large]:

... [city officials] thought nothing of placing generators in the basements of hospitals and skyscrapers built in areas that are barely above sea level.  ... Sandy’s nine-foot surges (plus five feet of high tide) flooded those basements, rendering generators useless, and leaving buildings cold and dark.

... The mayor has also obsessed about urban sprawl. However, when new developments mean high rents, high taxes and photo-op groundbreakings, he has a different philosophy.

... No wonder Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Cuomo and other politicos prefer to talk about global warming, rising seas and worsening weather — to deflect attention and blame from decisions that have put more people in the path of greater danger.

... How nice it must be to have convenient scapegoats like “dangerous man-made global warming” and insurance companies. [Actually insurance companies have been all too willing to use "climate change" as an excuse for raising rates.]