by Warren Duffy
CHAPTER 5
ICLEI: THE BIG BAD WOLF HUFFING AND PUFFING AT YOUR DOOR
How could the nations of the world be convinced to forsake their independence and sovereignty and voluntarily join a One World Government or a New World Order?
Throughout man’s history, dictators have used force, both in military and economics, to grind those who are weaker into surrendering their national allegiance and joining a march toward world domination. But short of a military invasion, or the threat of one, would any sovereign government simply relinquish its independence and sovereignty?
That problem has been solved by a new globalist concept known as “regionalism”. For a variety of reasons, nations of the world might be convinced to join regional alliances because once they do; regions can easily be linked together. Twentieth century Europe is an excellent example.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the “perestroika” of the Soviet Union, two regionalism concepts were introduced in Europe; militarily, the NATO alliance and economically, the European Common Market or the European Union (EU).
Since the birth of the EU, all local monetary currencies—the pound, the lira, the punt—have been folded into the newly minted Euro. Passports and visas are no longer needed to travel between Britain and Turkey. Trade restrictions, labor laws, tariffs and other economic factors have been folded into the fabric of the EU, while NATO forms the military umbrella. But all has not gone as planned in the EU. In fact, England and Germany, with decades of experience keeping less dependable partners in other nations afloat, is now considering withdrawing.
Nonetheless, regionalism accelerated toward the end of the 20th century. The North American Free Trade Association linked Canada, Mexico and the United States. In Tokyo, there is a similar Pan-Asian Trading Community. The world is gradually moving toward regionalism and the global governance promoters still believe that regional governments can more easily and seamlessly be blended into a New World Order, bypassing national sovereignty.
Consider how many times America has refused to move unilaterally when confronted with a military challenge. Before taking defensive or offensive action, the government has consulted with “the international community” or “our partners” to form mostly imaginary coalition forces that respond to threats.
A French businessman who served as the director of the European Commission for Trade, Director-General Pascal Lamy, currently heads the U.N.’s World Trade Organization. In a speech at Oxford University on March 8, 2012, Mr. Lamy summed up the current view of regionalism leading to globalism by stating, “In the absence of truly global government, global governance results from the action of several states. It is inter-national, between nations. In other words, global governance is the globalization of local governance.”
The Director-General further explained new Regionalism leads directly to a “one world government” based on a “one world economy”, and described his theory as a three sided triangle:
Side One of the Triangle
Trade groups like the G-20 replaced the outdated G-8. As new members joined the group, G-20’s economic influence has expanded to include more partners aligned with common goals and actions—a microcosm of regionalism.
Side Two of the Triangle
The United Nations. This global body will lead and direct the voluntary cooperation among regional groups for mutual aid and assistance, resulting in UN global governance.
Side Three of The Lamy Triangle
“Member-driven International Organizations”. Non-governmental agencies (NGO’s) will meet to solve local and regional problems and provide specialized rules, policies and/or programs that will provide regional solutions. The step from regionalism to globalism is viewed by Lamy and others as merely a small baby step to a “New World Order”.
Pascal Lamy
G-20 and the Path to Global Governance
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Inter-National—NGO’s Pascal Lamy Triangle What Lamy described was a U.N. project launched in New York in 1990, one that has been steadily growing for 20 plus years. The Organization’s motto is, “think globally and act locally”. This relatively unpublicized agency specifically targets the cooperative interrelationship of local governments all over the earth. By the thousands, cities and counties, most times unwittingly, have signed on to the new U.N. agency, voluntarily paid their dues to join and are now actively implementing Agenda 21’s global goals into local government. Here is how it happened.
Two years before the 1992 Rio Earth Summit convened with Strong and Brundtland’s synchronized socialist influence, the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, known as ICLEI was created by the United Nations. Alternately, it is known as “The World Congress of Local Governments for a Sustainable Future” and by now, your local city or county government might well be a “Gold Star” member.
In its first two decades, ICLEI has been able to establish 14 global offices. They now have members in 70 different nations with more than 1,220 local governments signed on as members. ICLEI claims their member organizations around the world represent a total of 569,885,000 people with a substantial portion of the world’s population pledging through their local governments, to support the goals of the U.N.’s Agenda 21.
At the ICLEI website, their goal is laid out quite clearly: “ICLEI supports local governments in finding and implementing local solutions to global challenges”. They go on to to explain, “Our programs and projects advocate participatory, long-term strategic planning processes that address local sustainability (there’s that key code word again) while protecting global common goods. This approach links local action and solutions to the global challenges we are facing and therefore also links local action to global goals and targets.”
Such a grand, global scheme requires both money and international prestige to accomplish its goals. The sponsors of ICLEI offer the U.N. both influence and money. Among the U.N.’s ICLEI sponsors are United Cities and Local Governments, The World Economic Forum, The World Bank, The Clinton Climate Initiative, the World Conservation Union, and many other major and well-known global environmental groups. NOTE: (Bill and Hillary’s charity meet annually in New York City the week prior to the opening of the U.N. General Assembly. Attendance is by invitation only and closed to the media.)
Naively, many believe these well-known environmental organizations are simply a collection of well meaning bird watchers wearing funny hats, sensible shoes and taking pictures of exotic species while strolling through local parks and wetlands. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, here are some of the members from President Clinton’s “Council On Sustainable Development” mentioned in Chapter 2.
The granddaddy of environmental groups is the Sierra Club, headquartered in San Francisco and founded in 1892 by John Muir, iconic naturalist and Yosemite Valley hiker. But in 1969, a schism within the group forced long time member David Browner to be removed from the Sierra Club board for being too controversial. He immediately formed his own environmental organization, Friends of the Earth.
Less one think Friends of the Earth is a laid back group of bird watchers, their website affirms they are “an environmental nongovernmental organization (NGO) with observer status at several intergovernmental organizations (such as FAO, IMO, UNEP), and the International Whaling Commission.” They state their objectives quite clearly, “to protect the Earth against deterioration and to repair damage inflicted upon the environment as a result of human activity and negligence; to preserve the Earth’s ecological, cultural, and ethnic diversity; to increase public participation and democratic decision making in the protection of the environment and the management of natural resources; to achieve social, economic, and political justice and equal access to resources and opportunities on a local, national, and international level; and to promote environmental sustainable development on a local, national, and global level.”
Friends of the Earth proudly
take credit for the media campaign that successfully halted construction of the Canadian XL Pipeline in the United States. The group is supported by an incredible 4,034,240 members worldwide.
Another well-known environmental activist group, Greenpeace, dates back to the early 1970s evolving from the anti-war movement and anti-nuclear protests. Today, they are also a non-governmental (environmental) organization, another “NGO”, with a goal to “ensure the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its diversity and focuses its campaigning on world wide issues such as global warming, deforestation, overfishing, commercial whaling, genetic engineering and anti-nuclear issues.” They claim to raise money from “2.9 million individual supporters and foundation grants”.
But the environmental group considered by many to be the most powerful in the world is the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) headquartered in New York City. It is a coalition of 300 environmental attorneys backed by a few carefully selected scientists who provide data for the group’s lawsuits.
NRDC spokespersons appear routinely in the mainstream media and are frequently quoted as expert environmentalists. But it is their team of activist attorneys who file environmental lawsuits with the courts nationally, regionally and locally. Next time you hear of an environmental legal action, chances are the mega-lawyer firm, the Natural Resources Defense Council, is involved.
Another huge international, environmental group is The Nature Conservancy. As of 2009, they boast of assets of $5.64-billion. Leading the Nature Conservancy is President and CEO Mark Tercek who was once a managing director at Goldman Sachs. With over one million due paying members in 30 countries, the organization claims it has protected 119 million acres of land throughout the world and 5,000 miles of rivers and streams since it began operations in 1951.
Dozens of non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) bring their environmental agenda and substantial financial support to fund the work of ICLEI. Their websites make no secret of how they raise money by declaring “We have a wide range of international partners that collaborate on our programs and campaigns, including national governments, academic institutions, local project-specific partners such as foundations and non-governmental organizations, and dozens of national, regional and international associations of local governments.”
ICLEI is another U.N. organization headquartered outside of the United States in Bonn, Germany. With offices in 12 major cities dotted strategically around the globe, ICLEI directs their work through regional offices in Oakland, California; Capetown, South Africa; Toronto, Canada and Tokyo. The European Secretariat is located in Freiburg, Germany and the Latin American and Caribbean Secretariat is in Sao Paulo Brazil. There are other offices in Mexico, Melbourne, Australia; New Delhi, India; and Manila, The Philippines.
On January 1, 2013, Gino Van Begin took control of the international ICLEI operations. Since 2000, he served as the regional director of operations at the ICLEI European Secretariat. Before that appointment, he served as the head of the EU’s Environmental Centers in Russia, at Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg. Born in Belgium, Van Begin co-drafted a document known as “The Aalborg Commitments on Urban Sustainability”, a regional planning program that currently includes 600 cities and towns.
Van Begin was preceded at ICLEI by the former World Secretariat, Konrad Otto Zimmerman, who was installed as the first ICLEI Chairman when the U.N. group was launched in 1992. A lifetime environmentalist and like Van Begin an urban planner, he is a member of the United Nation’s Program for Environmental Governance and the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council.
Every three years, ICLEI stages a large World Conference and according to their website connects “experts and peers from around the globe to share challenges and learn the most successful strategies for local sustainability and forge common solutions”.
Tactically, in America ICLEI implements their globalist environmental agenda through regional planning groups. Many of them bypass locally elected officials. City and County planners subscribe to ICLEI’s guidelines and when, for example, they apply for state and federal funding for regionally-planned projects, ICLEI membership virtually assures funding.
ICLEI’s United States President and Board Chairman is a notso-well-known and remarkably unlikely U.S. mayor, by the name of Patrick Hays, from the city of North Little Rock, Arkansas. He is assisted by the ICLEI-U.S.A. Corporate Secretary, Pegeen Hanrahan, former Mayor of Gainesville, Florida and ICLEI-U.S.A. Corporate Treasurer, Frank Cownie, former mayor of Des Moines, Iowa.
Are all of these small town politicians and regional urban planners a network of Global Environmental Conspirators bent on undermining U.S. sovereignty and creating a New World Order? Of course not. But, like many government officials all over the world, they became convinced during the 1990s that the goals of “Agenda 21” and the United Nations could solve the international environmental crisis of “Global Warming”.
ICLEI is very active across America. While they might seem relatively benign at first glance with a global environmental agenda as their goal, here are a few of the more enticing ICLEI news story headlines listed on their website.
• “EPA Releases Document on Energy Efficiency in Local Government Operations”
• “CityofHoustonjoinsBetterBuildingsChallenge” • “Carpentaria,CASwitchestoLEDStreetLightingtoCutCosts”
• “Seattle’sGreenBuildingEvolution”
• “Earth Day Network announces cities that will participate in Clinton Global Initiative”
• “Ithaca,NYgoes100%renewable”
• “Learn more about your state and local GHG emissions with EPA’s new map tool!”
Remember, most of the ICLEI goals and strategies are being implemented, not at the federal or state level, but by regional planning boards bypassing local voter accountability.
Consider the story of the city of Danville, California where this town’s general plan was put together by an unelected Regional Planning Commission. As introduced, the proposal will guide the city’s development for the next 20 years. Danville has joined a regional group known as the “Association of Bay Area Governments” and the group’s bonding commitment is the implementation of the U.N.’s “Agenda 21”.
One Danville resident who studied the regional plan observed it is full of “eco-babble”, the same eco-babble that has become familiar to all of us through the mainstream media. The planners address the usual list of environmental issues like “sustainable action, environmental preservation and reducing greenhouse gases”. The regional planners, determined that downtown Danville will become “a priority development area”, designed a network of transportation corridors that will enable the city to compete for federal, state and local funds for road maintenance and improvements. In the downtown area, the city also plans to set aside more than nine acres of prime real estate for new high density and affordable housing located adjacent to public transportation stops. This is an “Agenda 21” concept known as “pack and stack”—high rise apartment living. Global environmentalists believe it will be the future of urban housing.
Like Danville, cities across America are adopting the same concept. Regional planners are creating networks of transportation corridors that embrace the U.N.’s “Agenda 21” sustainability goals, including public transportation systems that will have not-too-frequent stops at stations where low income, high rise housing (environmentally engineered apartments) will be located. ICLEI’s goal for the current century is to popularize communities where cooperative “global citizens” won’t demand private transportation and certainly won’t demand an energy gobbling, 2300 square foot private home. Instead, they will live happily in an 800 square foot apartment, stacked one atop the other. The green citizens of the future will happily walk to the nearest public transportation stop where they can catch a ride to work or to shop. Better yet, they can bike to their destination on new taxpayer-supported bike paths. A “Green Utopia” will have finally
come to our planet.
With three quick steps on the internet, you can read about ICLEI for yourself:
• First:EnterICLEI.orginyourbrowsertogettheirwebsite.
• Second:Lookforthetablabeled“Programs”andclickonit.
• Third:ScrolldownuntilyoufindAgenda21andvoila!
From sea to shining sea, citizens in western cities from Spokane, Washington and Santa Rosa, California to east coast cities in states like Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia, residents are getting informed about the globalist intentions of the U.N.’s ICLEI program. They are learning how these plans are being subversively implemented, bypassing their locally-elected officials.
ICLEI’s “Think globally—Act locally” slogan doesn’t make sense to most Americans. Our nation’s long history of individual freedom and representative democracy is at odds with the ICLEI concept of elitist government policy from the top down. And in America’s current economic climate, tax dollars are in short supply. When local citizens learn their local government is sending membership dues to ICLEI, either through the U.N. headquarters in New York or the ICLEI headquarters in Germany, citizens are outraged and demand it be stopped.
As regional planners realized they were under attack, their national umbrella organization, The American Planning Association (APA), issued a list of “talking points” explaining their work in glowing terminology in an effort to help local planners defend themselves from outraged citizens. “APA members help create communities of lasting value,” the directive begins. “Good planning helps create communities that offer better choices for where and how people work and live. And planning enables civic leaders, business interests and citizens to play a meaningful role in creating communities that enrich people’s lives.”