[sustran] I had it all wrong! saving the world or world domination?

[Cornie Huizenga]

Dear All,

When people ask me what I am doing - I often say that I am busy saving the
world, but it is clear that I have it all wrong - it is world domination
that I am after.

I hope that the Tea Party does not find out about the letter we have send
to all the governments of this world this week asking them to incorporate
sustainable mobility in the outcome of the Rio+20 Conference this June.
Activists Fight Green Projects, Seeing U.N. Plot
 Jared Soares for The New York Times

At a Roanoke County, Va., meeting, dozens opposed the county's paying
$1,200 to a nonprofit.

Many are suspicious of environmental initiatives. Ed Elswick, a county
supervisor, voiced criticism at last month's meeting.

They are showing up at planning meetings to denounce bike lanes on public
streets and smart meters on home appliances — efforts they equate to a
big-government blueprint against individual rights.

“Down the road, this data will be used against you,” warned one speaker at
a recent Roanoke County, Va., Board of Supervisors meeting who turned out
with dozens of people opposed to the county’s paying $1,200 in dues to a
nonprofit that consults on sustainability issues.

Local officials say they would dismiss such notions except that the growing
and often heated protests are having an effect.

In Maine, the Tea Party-backed Republican governor canceled a project to
ease congestion along the Route 1 corridor after protesters complained it
was part of the United Nations plot. Similar opposition helped doom a
high-speed
train<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/h/high_speed_rail_projects/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>line
in Florida. And more than a dozen cities, towns and counties, under
new pressure, have cut off financing for a program that offers expertise on
how to measure and cut carbon emissions.

“It sounds a little on the weird side, but we’ve found we ignore it at our
own peril,” said George Homewood, a vice president of the American Planning
Association’s chapter in Virginia.

The protests date to 1992 when the United Nations passed a sweeping, but
nonbinding, 100-plus-page resolution called Agenda 21 that was designed to
encourage nations to use fewer resources and conserve open land by steering
development to already dense areas. They have gained momentum in the past
two years because of the emergence of the Tea Party movement, harnessing
its suspicion about government power and belief that man-made global
warming<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/globalwarming/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>is
a hoax.

In January, the Republican Party adopted its own resolution against what it
called “the destructive and insidious nature” of Agenda 21. And Newt
Gingrich took aim at it during a Republican debate in November.

Tom DeWeese, the founder of the American Policy
Center<http://americanpolicy.org/>,
a Warrenton, Va.-based foundation that advocates limited government, says
he has been a leader in the opposition to Agenda 21 since 1992. Until a few
years ago, he had few followers beyond a handful of farmers and ranchers in
rural areas. Now, he is a regular speaker at Tea Party events.

Membership is rising, Mr. DeWeese said, because what he sees as tangible
Agenda 21-inspired controls on water and energy use are intruding into
everyday life. “People may be acting out at some of these meetings, and I
do not condone that. But their elected representatives are not listening
and they are frustrated.”

Fox News has also helped spread the message. In June, after President Obama
signed an executive order creating a White House Rural Council to “enhance
federal engagement with rural communities,” Fox programs linked the order
to Agenda 21. A Fox commentator, Eric Bolling, said the council sounded
“eerily similar to a U.N. plan called Agenda 21, where a centralized
planning agency would be responsible for oversight into all areas of our
lives. A one world order <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFJc06x7dyA>.”

The movement has been particularly effective in Tea Party strongholds like
Virginia, Florida and Texas, but the police have been called in to contain
protests in states including Maryland and California, where opponents are
fighting laws passed in recent years to encourage development around public
transportation hubs and dense areas in an effort to save money and preserve
rural communities.

One group has become a particular target. Iclei — Local Governments for
Sustainability USA <http://www.icleiusa.org/>, an Oakland, Calif.-based
nonprofit, sells software and offers advice to communities looking to
reduce their carbon footprints. A City Council meeting in Missoula, Mont.,
in December got out of hand and required police intervention over $1,200 in
dues to Iclei.

At a Board of Supervisors meeting in Roanoke in late January, Cher McCoy, a
Tea Party member from nearby Lexington, Va., generated sustained applause
when she warned: “They get you hooked, and then Agenda 21 takes over. Your
rights are stripped one by one.”

Echoing other protesters, Ms. McCoy identified smart meters, devices being
installed by utility companies to collect information on energy use, as
part of the conspiracy. “The real job of smart meters is to spy on you and
control you — when you can and cannot use electrical appliances,” she said.

Ilana Preuss <http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/author/ipreuss/>, vice
president of Smart Growth America, a national coalition of nonprofits that
supports economic development while conserving open spaces and farmland,
said, “The real danger is not that they will get rid of some piece of
software from Iclei” but that “people will be too scared to have a
conversation about local development. And that is an important conversation
to be having.”

In some cases, the protests have not been large, but they are powerful
because officials are concerned about the Tea Party.

On the campaign trail, Mr. Gingrich has called Agenda 21 an important issue
and has said, “I would explicitly repudiate what Obama has done on Agenda
21.”

The Republican National Committee resolution, passed without fanfare on
Jan. 13, declared, “The United Nations Agenda 21 plan of radical so-called
‘sustainable development’ views the American way of life of private
property ownership, single family homes, private car ownership and
individual travel choices, and privately owned farms; all as destructive to
the environment.”

Other conservatives have welcomed the scrutiny of land-use issues, but they
do not agree with the emphasis on Agenda 21.

Jeremy Rabkin, a professor of law at George Mason University specializing
in sovereignty issues, said there were “entirely legitimate concerns about
international standards that come into American law without formal
ratification by the Senate.”

But some local officials argue that the programs that protesters see as
part of the conspiracy are entirely created by local governments with the
express intent of saving money — the central goal of the Tea Party
movement.

Planning groups, several of which said they had never heard of Agenda 21
until protesters burst in, are counterorganizing.

Summer Frederick, the project manager for the Thomas Jefferson Planning
District Commission in Charlottesville, Va., which withdrew its dues to
Iclei and its support from a national mayors’ agreement on climate change
late last year after a campaign by protesters, now conducts seminars on how
to deal with Agenda 21 critics. (Among her tips: remove the podium and
microphones, which can make it “very easy for a critic to hijack a
meeting.”)

Roanoke’s Board of Supervisors voted 3 to 2 to renew its Iclei financing
after many residents voiced their support.

“The Tea Party people say they want nonpolluted air and clean water and
everything we promote and support, but they also say it’s a communist
movement,” said Charlotte Moore, a supervisor who voted yes. “I really
don’t understand what they want.”
Cornie

-- 
Cornie Huizenga
Joint Convener
Partnership on Sustainable, Low Carbon Transport
Mobile: +86 13901949332
cornie.huizenga at slocatpartnership.org
www.slocat.net