In this article I am trying to convey some of the more compelling reasons Liberals have for a global agenda and centralized Government control so we Conservatives can see why it gains so much support and then focus our efforts on alternatives, or debunking some of the fundamental principles. For example, there is enough proof that man-made climate change is all hogwash, but where are the arguments against "depletion of natural resources as population grows"...or, "negative impacts on biodiversity as a result of human sprawl"....
If we simply remain dismissive of the issues because we wish to "keep things the same as they have always been", then the best we can hope for is to appear ignorant--intellectually rooted by dogmatism. If we are to be honest with ourselves then logic would dictate that spiraling consumption patterns, modernization of mining, fishing, agriculture, etc., coupled with greater industrialization; just might have some impact on either ecological balance, the environment, and/or the biosphere.
The principles of the Constitution are immutable in my opinion, but conversely it is fair to say that the world is not the same place that our Founding Fathers inhabited. This certainly does not give justification to changing the governing laws of the land, but it does present us with the challenge of broadening our perspective to be inclusive of the global consequences of our actions.
We have reasonably debunked the myth of man-made climate change, but this will not stop the Progressive agenda because there are many more issues that they bring to light. Irrespective of the fact that these issues are being used to foist a political agenda of corruption, power, and control; our resistance to such controls fail to effectively stop the political machine. Resistance only breeds counter-resistance, so such arguments are always met with retorts along the lines of ..."oh yeah, well look what Bush did...etc." Additionally, the political machine marches on largely due to the fact that the 'noble' aims of the Progressive movement give rise to the axiom 'the ends justify the means'. Since many of these ideals are truly a 'life or death' situation in their minds, then even that flawed rationale has some merit. After all, if one of your beloved was threatened with great harm, would you not do anything to protect him/her?
This is an invitation to 'wake up'. My fellow conservatives need to start understanding the oppositions concerns and work on researching viable alternatives. As the preponderance of reference links that follow the article suggests, they are extremely unified in their beliefs and very well versed in the subject matters they bring up. All we seem to be offering is our resistance to this bill or that bill, without understanding the contextual framework giving rise to these legislations and demonstrating that there is either no need, or acknowledging the need but offering more "American-principled" alternatives.
If you will notice, most Conservative articles and website blogs seem committed to exposing the horrors of this current Administration, while simultaneously pointing out the negative ramifications of their policies. This manner of expression is failing us for 2 glaringly obvious reasons: 1. It is steeped only in negativity, so thereby contributes no positive alternatives, which then serves only to further current societal rifts; and 2. it is reactionary, and as such, it is always in the 'past'; and while we are looking backwards, they keep machine gun firing new legislation right under our noses. We can never keep pace in this manner.
It seems to me that many Conservatives have become "sensation junkies", always reacting to the latest bad news and then committed to re-posting and emailing it around endlessly. We are all frustrated, and by 'identification' with others this momentarily ameliorates our internal unease. But typically what ensues are a bunch of platitudes, false bravado, or a space between the sensationalism that becomes filled with despair.
Everyone is very busy trying to keep up with policies and keeping other people informed, but it is time to ask: "what am I accomplishing?" With all the time we dedicate to our distress, bravado, or hysteria, I am suggesting we put that time and effort into some effective arguments or alternatives. Talking ABOUT the problem(s) does not in any way equate to doing the work necessary to help SOLVE the problem.
As an example, we understand how Cap and Trade is being foisted upon us for the purpose of atmosphere protection and energy conservation. We are also acutely aware how this will cause massive unemployment, raise taxes, drive energy costs sky-high, and transfer untold amounts of power to the Federal government. Although this information is important to be brought to light, of equal importance is positive alternatives! Again, by first assessing if there is indeed a real threat that needs to be addressed, and if so, offering a solution. [obviously increased population and industrialization will require the consumption of more energy, and this is why it does not suffice to simply say NO].
Just as debunking of the man-made climate change myth; although not 100% successful in stopping the machine, sure the heck was successful in slowing it down! Similarly, by going straight to the source of their other major issues and then addressing them, I am certain this will help promote our ultimate victory. I urge you to follow the 4 links below and read their predominate concerns. Once having done so, then present intelligent alternatives that embrace private-sector free-market solutions.
At the close of the article I have provided some of the more important links that one would need to understand more fully the concerns of the global community. This also illustrates how unified and organized they are in their approach. There will be no one left after this generation to carry on the fight to restore our country, so take these Progressives seriously and assume the responsibility of understanding FIRST, offering alternatives SECOND.
- Combating Poverty: This warrants lots of research and discussion because this area of concern is multi-dimensional. For example, developed countries have historically gone into underdeveloped third-world countries and offered the local tribal chief some Snicker Bars in exchange for their cobalt, magnesium, and other resources without proper remuneration or usage rights. Now where you and I might think this is just "smart negotiating", others tend to think this is exploitative. Also of concern are how these plundering countries might go about mining for these minerals--ravaging the host country ecology and rendering 1,000's of acres of land unusable for these cultures to either thrive economically, maintain personal health, and a host of other issues that lie in the wake of serious exploitation.
- Changing Consumption Patterns: "Although consumption patterns are very high in certain parts of the world, the basic consumer needs of a large section of humanity are not being met. This results in excessive demands and unsustainable lifestyles among the richer segments, which place immense stress on the environment. The poorer segments, meanwhile, are unable to meet food, health care, shelter and educational needs. Changing consumption patterns will require a multipronged strategy focusing on demand, meeting the basic needs of the poor, and reducing wastage and the use of finite resources in the production process. Growing recognition of the importance of addressing consumption has also not yet been matched by an understanding of its implications. Some economists are questioning traditional concepts of economic growth and underlining the importance of pursuing economic objectives that take account of the full value of natural resource capital. More needs to be known about the role of consumption in relation to economic growth and population dynamics in order to formulate coherent international and national policies." This aspect of consumption patterns is economical in nature, but additionally there remains the question of environmental impact and resource depletion.
- Demographics, Consumption, and Sustainability: "The growth of world population and production combined with unsustainable consumption patterns places increasingly severe stress on the life-supporting capacities of our planet. These interactive processes affect the use of land, water, air, energy and other resources. Rapidly growing cities, unless well-managed, face major environmental problems. The increase in both the number and size of cities calls for greater attention to issues of local government and municipal management. The human dimensions are key elements to consider in this intricate set of relationships and they should be adequately taken into consideration in comprehensive policies for sustainable development."
- Conservation of Biodiversity: "Our planet's essential goods and services depend on the variety and variability of genes, species, populations and ecosystems. Biological resources feed and clothe us and provide housing, medicines and spiritual nourishment. The natural ecosystems of forests, savannahs, pastures and rangelands, deserts, tundras, rivers, lakes and seas contain most of the Earth's biodiversity. Farmers' fields and gardens are also of great importance as repositories, while gene banks, botanical gardens, zoos and other germplasm repositories make a small but significant contribution. The current decline in biodiversity is largely the result of human activity and represents a serious threat to human development". Inclusive of this broad topic are issues ofdesertification, deforestation, water and air pollution, etc etc.
References for Research
These CSOs are those organizations that have consultative status within the United Nations and are responsible for either outlining policy or helping to implement policies. This is where much of our tax dollars go, funding those organizations that help to perpetuate current political agenda.
The United Nations is both a participant in and a witness to an increasingly global civil society. More and more, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other civil society organizations (CSOs) are UN system partners and valuable UN links to civil society. CSOs play a key role at major United Nations Conferences and are indispensable partners for UN efforts at the country level. NGOs are consulted on UN policy and programme matters. The UN organizes and hosts, on a regular basis, briefings, meetings and conferences for NGO representatives who are accredited to UN offices, programmes and agencies.
Database of CSOs
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are the most broadly supported, comprehensive and specific development goals the world has ever agreed upon. These eight time-bound goals provide concrete, numerical benchmarks for tackling extreme poverty in its many dimensions. They include goals and targets on income poverty, hunger, maternal and child mortality, disease, inadequate shelter, gender inequality, environmental degradation and the Global Partnership for Development.
Adopted by world leaders in the year 2000 and set to be achieved by 2015, the MDGs are both global and local, tailored by each country to suit specific development needs. They provide a framework for the entire international community to work together towards a common end – making sure that human development reaches everyone, everywhere. If these goals are achieved, world poverty will be cut by half, tens of millions of lives will be saved, and billions more people will have the opportunity to benefit from the global economy.
UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is an international development agency that promotes the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. UNFPA supports countries in using population data for policies and programmes to reduce poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.
List of Supporting Organizations
Implications of Worldwide Population Growth For U.S. Security and Overseas Interests (aka The Kissinger Report)
The report advocates the promotion of education andcontraceptionand other population control measures. It also raises the question of whether the U.S. should consider preferential allocation of surplus food supplies to states that are deemed constructive in use of population control measures. The report advises, "In these sensitive relations, however, it is important in style as well as substance to avoid the appearance of coercion."
Brief to Congress Against Population Control
The Global Environment Facility was established in October 1991 as a $1 billion pilot program in the World Bank to assist in the protection of the global environment and to promote environmental sustainable development. The GEF would provide new and additional grants and concessional funding to cover the "incremental" or additional costs associated with transforming a project with national benefits into one with global environmental benefits.
GEF Civil Society Organizations
Ecosystem Management: Scientific evidence shows that ecosystems are under unprecedented pressure, threatening prospects for sustainable development. While the challenges are daunting, they also provide opportunities for local communities, business and government to innovate for the benefit of communities, economies and the global environment. However, in order to secure the environmental conditions for prosperity, stability and equity, timely responses that are proportionate to the scale of the environmental challenges will be required. In creating such responses, governments, the international community, the private sector, civil society and the general public all have an important role to play. As the environmental programme of the United Nations, UNEP is working to articulate, facilitate and support appropriate responses.
Climate Change: Climate change has long-since ceased to be a scientific curiosity, and is no longerjust one of many environmental and regulatory concerns. As the United Nations Secretary General has said, it is the major, overriding environmental issue of our time, and the single greatest challenge facing environmental regulators. It is a growing crisis with economic, health and safety, food production, security, and other dimensions.
Climate Change Factsheet (July, 2010)
World Conservation Monitoring Centre: The Centre has a mandate from the UNEP Governing Council to provide a range of biodiversity-related services to UNEP, the biodiversity-related conventions and their constituent party-states and other bodies in the non-governmental and private sectors
United Nations System-Wide Earthwatch: The Global Biodiversity Assessment measures the effects of human activities on biodiversity. They have increased so greatly that the rate of species extinctions is rising to hundreds or thousands of times the background level. These losses are driven by increasing demands on species and their habitats, and by the failure of current market systems to value biodiversity adequately. The Assessment calls for urgent action to reverse these trends.
Earthwatch and Agenda 21: Apart from the separate issues reviewed here, one significant broad result of the Rio process and Agenda 21 has been the growing recognition that all the different aspects of sustainable development described in its forty chapters are interrelated, and only integrated approaches will make it possible to approach sustainability. New evidence since Rio shows that these interrelationships also apply to the major environmental problems, such as those for which international conventions have been adopted. There are significant interactions between climate change, ozone depletion, desertification and biodiversity loss, for instance, requiring greater attention to synergistic effects between these problems, and integrated approaches to research, assessment and management.
UNEP and Agenda 21: Both UNESCO and the UNEP hold conferences regarding Agenda 21. The UNEP is hosting the 2012
Conference on Sustainable Development: At the
1992 Earth Summit in Rio, the international community adopted
Agenda 21, an unprecedented global plan of action for sustainable development. Ten years later, the
Johannesburg Plan of Implementationwas adopted highlighting concrete steps for better implementing Agenda 21. However, the progress has been slow in achieving internationally agreed goals, and challenges remain in achieving the goals of the three pillars of sustainable development, particularly in the context of the current global crises. The Conference will bring together a range of participants, including heads of State and Government, national delegates and leaders from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), businesses and other major groups to focus the world's attention and direct action toward addressing difficult challenges our planet is facing, including reducing poverty, conserving our natural resources, overcoming financial and economic crisis.
The Marrakech Process: The Marrakech Process is a global process to support the elaboration of a 10-Year Framework of Programmes (10YFP) on sustainable consumption and production, as called for by the WSSD Johannesburg Plan of Action. UNEP and UN DESA are the lead agencies of this global process, with an active participation of national governments, development agencies, and civil society.
Transitioning to more sustainable patterns of consumption and production is at the heart of sustainable development, and international co-operation is essential to effect that transition. Recognizing this, governments at the
Johannesburg Summitin 2002 called for the development of a 10-year framework of programmes in support of regional and national initiatives to accelerate the shift towards sustainable patterns of consumption and production that will promote social and economic development within the carrying capacity of ecosystems. The
draft input to the 10YFPfrom the Marrakech Process is now available for public comment.
Division for Sustainable Development: The Division for Sustainable Development (DSD) provides leadership and is an authoritative source of expertise within the United Nations system on sustainable development. It promotes sustainable development as the substantive secretariat to the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) and through technical cooperation and capacity building at international, regional and national levels. The context for the Division's work is the implementation of Agenda 21, the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation and the Barbados Programme of Action for Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States.
The United Nations Human Settlements Programme, UN-HABITAT, is the United Nations agency for human settlements. It is mandated by the UN General Assembly to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all. The main documents outlining the mandate of the organization are the
Vancouver Declaration on Human Settlements,
Habitat Agenda,
Istanbul Declaration on Human Settlements, the
Declaration on Cities and Other Human Settlementsin the New Millennium, and
Resolution 56/206
UN-HABITAT's Sustainable Cities Programme and a project known as
Localising Agenda 21, help cities get the most out of their vital role in social and economic development by promoting better environmental policies and programmes, aimed at reducing pollution, and improving urban environmental management.
Al Gore states: "The model of theMarshall Plancan be of great help. For example, a Global Marshall Plan must focus on strategic goals and emphasize actions and programs that are likely to remove the bottlenecks presently inhibiting the healthy functioning of the global economy. The new global economy must be an inclusive system that does not leave entire regions behind. The new plan will require the wealthy nations to allocate money for transferring environmentally helpful technologies to the Third World and to help impoverished nations achieve a stable population and a new pattern of sustainable economic progress. To work, however, any such effort will also require wealthy nations to make a transition themselves that will be in some ways more wrenching than that of the Third World."
In order to further the idea of a GMP and to coordinate the various initiatives, NGOs, scientists, activists and groups in the field of development cooperation and
global social justice the Global Marshall Plan Initiative was founded by members of the
Club of Rome, the
Club of Budapest, the
ATTACand other organizations in Frankfurt, Germany in 2003. The two main objectives are to find new ways and sources of financing in development cooperation, predominantly pursuing the
Millennium Development Goalsof the
UNand the worldwide propagation of the
eco-social market economy, which is considered to be one of today's key strategies of initiative.
The Earth Charter is a declaration of fundamental ethical principles for building a just, sustainable and peaceful global society in the 21st century. It seeks to inspire in all people a new sense of global interdependence and shared responsibility for the well-being of the whole human family, the greater community of life, and future generations. It is a vision of hope and a call to action.
The Earth Charter is centrally concerned with the transition to sustainable ways of living and sustainable human development. Ecological integrity is one major theme. However, the Earth Charter recognizes that the goals of ecological protection, the eradication of poverty, equitable economic development, respect for human rights, democracy, and peace are interdependent and indivisible. It provides, therefore, a new, inclusive, integrated ethical framework to guide the transition to a sustainable future.
The Earth Scouts: Earth Scouts is a new national program developed by
Earth Charter U.S.that inspires the above qualities in boys and girls from 3 to 17 years of age and engages them in actions. Earth Scouts themes are derived from the
Earth Charter: A Declaration of Interdependence. The Earth Charter calls for a caring, sustainable and peaceful world. It was written by thousands of people from 78 countries over a period of 10 years and launched at The Hague Peace Palace in 2000.
Earth Scout Merit Badges: Participatory Democracy Badge, Human Rights Badge, Peace & Nonviolence Badge, Respect for Nature Badge, Economic Justice Badge, Earth Scouts Logos Patch
The Alliance for Climate Protection: This is a psychologically clever website of an NGO owned by AL Gore. This website cleverly uses peer group principles of identification. A sense of 'belonging' and 'participation' are very important during childhood formative years, and this website is powerfully designed to capitalize on these psychodynamic principles.
Savant Noir can be found at spinpolitico.com. He can be reached at: savant-noir@cox.net
