Are U.S. Constitutional Rights “Sustainable” Under

ICLEI And The United Nations’ Agenda 21 Goals?

June 2, 2011by

Charles Battig, MDCharlottesville, VA

May 2011 1

“Mandated Sustainability” vs. Sustainability

• I support sustainability; I support responsible environmental stewardship; I support freedom of choice and private property rights. These aims are self-consistent.

• What is not consistent is the high-jacking of the term “sustainability” by radical extremists who would use that same word as a code word for an agenda to implement their central planning objectives on all members of the public. This is an entirely different vision of “sustainability.” This is “mandated sustainability” as determined by the social elites. It is a virulent strain of politically-defined sustainability born of a Norwegian socialist in the Brundtland Commission Report of 1987. These radicals openly seek to count, measure, pass judgment on, limit, and define allowed public behavior and use of private property under their self-imposed determination of what they tell the ordinary citizen is “sustainable.” The benign interpretation of sustainability is the camouflage of language used by the social activists to hoodwink the well-meaning citizen, and diminish the concerns of citizens frightened of losing their constitutional rights.

• I support “sustaining” our U.S. Constitution and our inalienable rights it enumerates.

May 2011 2

What Is “Mandated” Sustainable Development?

As a political doctrine, it is a United Nations concept from the 1987 report “Our Common Future” produced by the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development, authored by Gro Harlem Bruntland, VP of the World Socialist Party

May 2011 3

What Are The Objectives of “Sustainable Development”?

• Objectives include the linking of economic , social, and environmental policies in order to reduce human consumption, achieve social equity, and preserve biodiversity

• It is predicated on alarmist claims of human caused destruction of the environment

• This global goal is to be achieved using central planning techniques at each level of government to regulate private property ownership and individual freedom

• Central governmental control is the aim; “sustainability” is merely the pretense for public consumption

May 2011 4

The United Nations Says So

The language of the United Nations reveals the true over-reaching aims and dangers of “sustainability”:

United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development “Land …cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals…private land ownership…contributes to social injustice

May 2011 5

Agenda 21 Document

“A comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally, and locally by organizations of the UN, governments, and major groups in every area in which humans impact the environment”Rio 1992

May 2011 6

Report From President Clinton’s Panel• The 1999 report: “Towards a Sustainable

America: Advancing Prosperity, Opportunity, and a Healthy Environment for the 21st Century” became part of Federal policy

• Recommendations included:– “smart growth”– “efficient mortgages” preference to living near

transportation hubs– change travel demand and land use– “sustainability”

May 2011 7

Federal “Sustainability” Is In Our Classrooms

May 2011 8

What Is ICLEI?

International Council for Local

Environmental Initiativesrelabeled in 2003 as

“Local Governments for Sustainability”

May 2011 9

The Origins of ICLEI• ICLEI was conceived in 1989 in Canada as a

follow-on project to the 1987 Montreal Accord on ozone depletion

• Canadian Jeb Brugmann conceived of an agency that would coordinate local government responses to global environmental problems

• The UN Environment Programme hosted a World Congress of Local Governments for a Sustainable Future in New York City, September, 1990 which produced the ICLEI charter

May 2011 10

Local Agenda 21 Is A Global ICLEI Project

May 2011 11

The “ICLEI USA” Mission• ICLEI USA, part of ICLEI International, launched in 1995: “Our

mission is to build, serve, and drive a movement of local governments to advance deep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and achieve tangible improvements in local sustainability”

• There is the stated need to reduce greenhouse gases is built upon a bogus assumption of climate and population crises

• ICLEI came into being in the heyday of scary climate change propaganda by Al Gore

• The pretext of climate concern is used to implement governmental policy edicts, limiting personal freedom

May 2011 12

Don’t Scare The Citizens• United Nations Environment and Development

Forum Speaker Gary Lawrence (former Clinton advisor) in reference to LA21 concerns:“we call our processes something else, such as comprehensive planning, growth management, or smart growth”

• The social planners have been adept in using other such language as: “Resilient Cities,” “Regional Visioning Projects,” “STAR Sustainable Communities,” ‘Green Jobs,” “Local Visioning,” and Consensus Building”

May 2011 13

The ICLEI Application For Local Governments

ICLEI is an activist organizationAs part of the application ICLEI members agree to:– Pay modest annual dues– Report results and progress– Participate in membership activities such as

elections, events, surveys, and calls for action– Support recruiting efforts and membership

promotion when appropriate

May 2011 14

Albemarle Staff Enrolled County As An ICLEI Member, November 2007

May 2011 15

Albemarle County Completes ICLEI Milestone Number Three Of Five February 2011: In conjunction with the City of Charlottesville, and the University of Virginia, Albemarle County hosted the community workshop “Carbon ,Our Energy Future, and You” the culmination of an 18 month process as part of the mandated “Develop a Local Action Plan.”The official press release contained “need to” repeatedly in referring to changes in life style they claimed are necessary to achieve the emissions reduction goal of 80% by 2050. “Social equity” was listed among their goals.

May 2011 16

Basis Of “Cool Cities/Counties” Climate Change Dogma Fails Science TestSince 2001 atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased 5 per centSince 2001 the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide added represents 25 per cent of all the carbon dioxide added since 1751Since 2001 global temperature has gone down by approximately 0.05 degrees C, not up Carbon dioxide up, temperature down: end of scare story and carbon footprint mania

May 2011 17Source: Professor Bob Carter, James Cook University, Australia

American Planning Association (APA)

• This self-described advocacy group obtained U.S. Federal grant and private funding to produce the “Growing Smart Legislative Guidebook” in 2002

• Seven years in the making, this cookbook manual for local governments provides the tools to achieve effective government control of growth and environmental issues (sustainability) by nibbling away at private choice and property rights by legislative design

May 2011 18

Albemarle County Signs Onto U.S. HUD Grant and Conditions

• October 20, 2010: County staff (Mr. Robert Tucker, Jr.) commits Albemarle County to be a partner in applying for the “HUD Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant”

• The County agrees to “…incorporate the livability principles (as adopted by HUD, DOT, and EPA) into the planning effort”

• Albemarle County is committed to provide $161,000 as “leveraged resources”

May 2011 19

Albemarle County HUD Application

May 2011 20

Thomas Jefferson Planning District “1998 Sustainability Accords” Is

The Basis Of Its 2010 HUD Grant• This 1998 product of a four-year process claims to

represent “Principles which govern a sustainable community” through a delineation of Goals, Objectives, and Indicators and Benchmarks of a sustainable region

• Some goals: determine the size and distribution of human population; employment that is “fulfilling,” promote “clustering” in residential areas, regulate transportation and land use

May 2011 21

A Remarkable Similarity

• When compared to the County’s ICLEI “5 Milestones,” the TJPDC “six products” bear a remarkable similarity of means and aims

• Perhaps coincidental or not, but it does confirm a uniform group-think in this community, shared by the various government officials wearing multiple hats on a variety of similar planning boards and public policy platforms

May 2011 22

Don’t Scare The Taxpayers

• Although the TJPDC grant document contained the terms “sustainability/sustainable” almost 70 times, the TJPDC changed the name of this grant to the “Livable Communities Planning Project” just in time for the first mandated public presentation on April 27, 2011 at the Albemarle County Office Building

• This illustrates the local, central planners’ ambivalence over “sustainability’ even as ICLEI changed its name to “Local Governments for Sustainability”

May 2011 23

Perfecting The Illusion of “Public Consensus”

• Community workshops, consensus building, public partnering, stewardship opportunity, coalition building, having your thoughts and opinions heard: this is the language of expert facilitators who guide public opinion and give the public the feeling that the sustainability implementation measures are the public’s own wishes

• The “consensus” is in practice the unchanged, pre-made agenda of the activist who has appointed him/herself as the one who defines “sustainability”

• Little of “public opinion” gets to modify the pre-set plan• Public-private partnerships enable favoritism status

May 2011 24

What United Nations Influence? • The U.S. Department of Education puts “sustainability”

into K-12 • Virginia’s “Virginia State Climate Protection Network”

brings “sustainability” here in 2007• Albemarle County staff bring ICLEI to County government

in 2007• In 2010, Albemarle County joins with the Thomas

Jefferson Planning District Commission in pledging to the Federal government to implement “sustainability” locallySome local elected officials still refuse to see the U.N. fingerprint of Agenda 21 and the “sustainability infection” existing in County government

May 2011 25

Connecting The Dots• Agenda 21 is a UN product designed to impose

sustainability and biodiversity as benchmarks to be applied to all human activities via central planning

• ICLEI actively supports and participates in these UN objectives through its Local Agenda 21 program

• Albemarle County is a dues paying member of ICLEI since 2007

• Albemarle County is fulfilling ICLEI’s “5 Milestone Mandate”

• The TJPDC now has $999,000 of H.U.D. funds to promote its over-reaching version of sustainability and influence elected officials to adopt their recommendationsMay 2011 26

Albemarle County Does Not Need ICLEI ,U.N.’s Agenda 21, or No- Growth Environmental

Radicals To Achieve Responsible Resource

Stewardship

May 2011 27