{"id":319,"date":"2012-11-20T07:31:11","date_gmt":"2012-11-20T12:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/the-real-un-agenda-21.html"},"modified":"2014-05-07T06:14:24","modified_gmt":"2014-05-07T10:14:24","slug":"the-real-un-agenda-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/the-real-un-agenda-21.html","title":{"rendered":"The real U.N. Agenda 21"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nWhat is this Agenda 21 referred to by the\r\n\r\nanti-sustainability astroturf talking points<\/a>\r\nmovie shown at the Georgia statehouse?\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\nThe real Agenda 21<\/a> is a typical U.N. set of do-good wishful thinking\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\ndocuments adopted at a U.N. conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.\r\nIf you think it’s been successful in actually implementing sustainability,\r\nyou haven’t paid attention this summer to the\r\nU.N. Rio+20 successor conference from\r\nactivists actually interested in a sustainable economy.\r\nSuch pro-sustainability activists generally\r\n\r\nbemoaned the lack of effective action in the intervening twenty years:<\/a>\r\nthe climate continues to warm as almost every nation continues to burn\r\nmore fossil fuels.\r\nThe U.N.’s own Rio+20 document pretty much\r\n\r\nrelegates such concerns to a sideline to an expanding economy.<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe U.N.’s intentions are good: this is a small planet with\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nlimited resources, and we are busily using them up.\r\nThat’s why we need a sustainable economy.\r\nIt shouldn’t be all that hard to start one:\r\nstop subsidizing the fossil fuel companies and\r\nget on with renewable energy from the sun and wind and waves and tides.\r\nCompanies and countries that go there first will profit first,\r\nas Germany and Denmark and Scotland are already doing.\r\nThe rest of us are held back by\r\n\r\nthe illusion of certainty<\/a>\r\nin doing what they have always done, even as the planet heats around them.\r\nWhy should power utilities and fossil fuel and nuclear companies\r\ndo any different as long as they have\r\n<\/a>\r\n\r\nfinancial boondoggles<\/a> guaranteed for them by regulatory-captured\r\ngovernment agencies,\r\nand abetted by groups like ALEC?\r\nThe fossil-nuclear-utility complex\r\nwill continue wallowing in the illusion of certainty until\r\nwe the people demand something different.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe people speaking up is\r\npart of governance, a word that gets the conspiracy buffs\r\nbent out of shape.\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nGovernance is not the same as government.\r\nGovernment is only a small part of governance,\r\nwhich includes everything from elected bodies to the media\r\nto people chatting about issues in bars.\r\nThe\r\n\r\nU.N.’s own definition is<\/a>:\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nthe process of decision-making and the process by which decisions\r\nare implemented (or not implemented).\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nEven floating a conspiracy theory is a part of governance, in that\r\nit’s participation by the people.\r\nThe real Delphi method is a technique of governance, in seeking\r\nconsensus among people who have input.\r\nThe anti-sustainability talking points seek to sabotage consensus\r\nor even people talking about sustainability because that could\r\nlead to the downfall of the\r\n\r\nfossil fuel utility company gravy stool.<\/a>\r\nThe toothless U.N. has no power to impose consensus on the people.\r\nIt merely seeks, vaguely and mostly ineffectively, to encourage\r\npeople to get on with what we’re all going to have to do sooner or later,\r\nand later it will be much harder.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nAs for Agenda 21 actually saying any of the stuff conspiracy buffs say it does\r\nabout doing away with private property rights or being against marriage,\r\nI say what I always do: show me.\r\nDon’t just handwave at the document; I know where the document is.\r\nShow me where in the document it says any of that.\r\nBe specific: chapter and verse.\r\nExcept nobody can do that, because it doesn’t say that.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nNext: \r\nALEC and the anti-sustainability talking points<\/a>.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n-jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What is this Agenda 21 referred to by the anti-sustainability astroturf talking points movie shown at the Georgia statehouse? The real Agenda 21 is a typical U.N. set of do-good wishful thinking documents adopted at a U.N. conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. If you think it’s been successful in actually implementing sustainability, you […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,140,40,16,70,18,2,21,22,32,23,24,53,36],"tags":[8736,164,8744,8717,8706,8728,8701,8699,8702,12,8711,8712,1337,1304,8725,1305,1336],"class_list":["post-319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-alec","category-community","category-environment","category-ethics","category-georgia-power","category-government","category-planning","category-politics","category-pollution","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-sustainability","category-wind","tag-activism","tag-agenda-21","tag-alec","tag-community","tag-environment","tag-ethics","tag-georgia","tag-government","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-planning","tag-politics","tag-rio","tag-rio20","tag-sustainability","tag-u-n","tag-united-nations"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-59","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8684,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions\/8684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}