New York’s “Sustainability” Plan: aka “Agenda 21”
An insidious plan to install the “New World” state-supported religion –
Environmentalism
Mary Kay Barton
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“Agenda 21” was
first introduced to the world at the 1992 UN-sponsored “Earth Summit” in Rio
de Janeiro. It addresses virtually
every facet of human life and describes in great detail how the concept of “sustainable
development” should be implemented at every level of government.
“Agenda 21 proposes an array of
actions which are intended to be implemented by every person on earth…. It
calls for specific changes in the activities of all people.… Effective
execution of Agenda 21 will require a
profound reorientation of all humans, unlike anything the world has ever
experienced.” [emphasis added] Agenda 21:
The Earth Summit Strategy to Save Our Planet, United
Nations (1993)
“The Sustainable Development Challenge Grant
program is also a step in implementing Agenda
21, the Global Plan of Action on Sustainable Development, signed by the United States at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. All of these
programs require broad community participation to identify and address
environmental issues.” Environmental Protection Agency, 63 Fed. Reg. 45157 (August
24, 1998).
On January 26, 2012, I attended the final meeting in Batavia, NY for
the Finger
Lakes “Regional Sustainability Plan,” part of New
York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s $10 million statewide
program to have regional Planning Departments orchestrate “sustainability” plans
described in NYSERDA’s “Cleaner, Greener Communities” Program. Following is my take on what is going on across New York State in regard to these
extensive plans in the making.
As those who have studied the United Nations’ “Agenda 21” plan know,
“Sustainability” is a key buzzword that is part-and-parcel of the UN’s Agenda
21 agenda. It’s also meaningless
and malleable – allowing activists and planners to bend and shape it to
serve their agendas.
There is no doubt that the
“Sustainability” Plan currently being devised by Planning Departments across
the state, all of which are acting “under NYSERDA’s thumb” (as one planner
phrased it at their first meeting in Batavia), is Agenda 21, under
development and in practice (think carbon taxes, “green” energy transfer-of-wealth
schemes, and one-world governance). No wonder the
Hollywood crowd loves sustainable development, Agenda 21 and Al Gore.
At the “open-house style” meeting in
Batavia, folks were asked to read
the poster boards relevant to each part of the overall plan: Land Use, Water
Use, Agriculture, Forestry, Waste Management, Economic Development, and Energy –
and then use sticky notes to post their comments on the boards for each
particular segment of the plan.
Free-market economists sharply differentiate
between central government planning
and decentralized market planning
(See F.A. Hayak's, Road to Serfdom, pages 34 - 35). Thus, while many
see little wrong with developing an overall plan, remember that their coercion
crowds out your own planning. And while different aspects of the extensive
plans look good at first glance, the devil is in the details.
The fact that NYSERDA is the bureaucracy
overseeing this process is the tell-tale warning sign, as the development of renewable
energy across the state and ways to regulate hydrocarbon use and carbon dioxide
emissions is the overarching goal in each area of the plan.
This should leave everyone very wary about the
remaining $90 million – which came from the Northeast’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) ratepayer dollars, and which will be offered as “grants”
(the proverbial “carrots” used to lead the sheep) to guide our communities into
“compliance” with the overall underlying agenda – that of Agenda
21.
Who knows where the money will come from for
Governor Cuomo’s proposed billion-dollar “Green Bank” and $1.5 Billion dollar Solar fund?
Remember when Obama President Obama said there
were other ways of “skinning the cat” besides cap-and-trade?
One of the biggest warning flags I
noted at the meeting (besides the “green” energy push and carbon regulation
goals) was on the chart regarding “Land Use.” I noted one line that said, “Home Rule” interferes with inter-municipal cooperation.…”
The obvious subliminal message here is that “Home
Rule” is a bad thing.
Our municipalities’ long-held,
Constitutional right to “Home Rule” is being progressively undermined through
this whole process of State-led planning. We are unwittingly, slowly and methodically
giving over total control to unelected bureaucrats, planners and activists, who
are devising these “green” “sustainability” plans – which are part and parcel
of Agenda 21 (which many officials and bureaucrats insist they still know
nothing about).
The sad reality is that most of
these planners are not at all educated about energy and power. As I was getting
ready to leave the meeting, one of the FL Planners asked me what I had thought
of the display.
I told him straight out that the
obvious push for “unreliables” (aka “renewable”) like wind is a complete waste of our tax- and rate-payer dollars. I told him that while I am certainly all for scientifically-vetted,
economically-sound energy-innovation,
industrial wind was the biggest scam to ever come down the pike.
Sadly, he responded with the
decades-old propaganda line, “Well, we have to do something. Oil is responsible
for so much of our pollution.”
I responded, “I’m not talking about
oil – which is used for transportation. I’m talking about unreliable wind
power – which is used for electricity!”
He tried to argue that eventually we
would end up going to all electric
vehicles. I just laughed, and said, “Sir, I’m afraid you’ve drank the
Kool-Aid! I couldn’t even make it home and back in an electric car.” And
imagine trying to recharge car batteries using expensive, intermittent,
bird-killing wind turbines!
Thankfully, a local guy who does get
it stepped in and said, even if electric vehicles became more prevalent, they
could never be used to do the kind of heavy work required on our farms.
As our conversation proceeded, we
had the attention of the entire small crowd that was in the room – which played
out great, as the facts totally destroyed this planner’s entire argument.
Not one of the five planners who
were there knew what “Capacity Value“
was, nor that wind provided virtually NONE. I told him that wind is not the
future, and in all actuality, there is a direct correlation
between RELIABLE, AFFORDABLE power, and increased health and longevity in this
country, which he could verify by doing a little research.
I ended up leaving a copy of John Etherington’s The Wind Farm Scam: An Ecologist’s Evaluation and Robert Bryce’s Power Hungry: The Myths of “Green” Energy and the Real Fuels of
the Future with one of the head planners
there.
Hopefully, they will actually read
them and reverse course, so that New York State can cut its
budget, preserve the environment, and safeguard our neighbors’ quality of life
and property values – all at the same time. As it is now, the energy-illiterate
planners guiding the development of (UN-initiated) “Sustainability Plans” in
New York State (Governor Andrew Cuomo and his cohorts at NYSERDA) are
not basing their decisions on sound
science, but on politics surrounding the UN’s “New World,” state-supported religion
of “Environmentalism.”
As Paul Driessen stated so well: "Climate alarmism and pseudo-science
have justified all manner of regulations, carbon trading, carbon taxes,
renewable energy programs and other initiatives that increase the cost of
everything we make, grow, ship, eat, heat, cool, wear and do – and thus impair
job creation, economic growth, living standards, health, welfare and ecological
values."
Whether the “Sustainability Plans” are in New York State or Timbuktu, there is nothing at
all that is “sustainable” about any of this.
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Mary Kay Barton is a retired health educator and
New York State small business owner, and a tireless advocate for scientifically
sound, affordable and reliable electricity for all Americans. She has served
over the past decade in local water quality organizations and enjoys gardening
and birding in her National Wildlife Federation “Backyard Wildlife Habitat.”
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