Why agenda 21 is good

There is evidence that the claim has circulated on social media for years, but a May repost by Facebook user Vernon Adkinson recently went viral. Items on the agenda include one world government; a single cashless currency; government-owned and controlled schools, colleges and universities and an end to single-family homes.

The agenda included 31 items addressing global social and economic dimensions; conservation and resource management; role strengthening for women, children and workers, as well as proposed methods of implementation.

Items listed in the "new world order" do not appear in Agenda For instance, there is no mention of currency. Terms like "military" and "sovereignty" also do not appear, though both are referenced in the "new world order.

More: 'No one is safe until everyone is safe': Vaccine nationalism threatens global coronavirus effort. However, there are brief mentions of some of the items from the claim. The term "central banking" is present in reference to capacity-building in developing countries; it is not described as a "world central bank.

The Agenda for Sustainable Development is a resolution adopted by the U. But in the case of Rosa Koire pronounced CORE-ee , a self-described lesbian feminist and longtime forensic commercial real estate appraiser specializing in eminent domain evaluation, the criticism is ostensibly coming from the left.

She also claims that the Democratic Party has been hijacked by socialists. After that, Koire sounds like most Agenda 21 fearmongers.

Koire authored a book, Behind the Green Mask: U. The group has long been involved in a wide array of highly conservative causes, many of them having to do with with women and the family — opposition to abortion, sex education in public schools, working mothers and feminism in general. It also favors English as our official language, assimilation of immigrants, and the right to bear arms. Finally, it opposes international oversight by the United Nations.

In that vein, the Eagle Forum came out relatively recently against Agenda 21, forming the Agenda 21 Task Force to lead the battle. Michael Coffman founded Environmental Perspectives Inc. It is to establish global governance and abandon the principles of natural law. Jim DeMint R-S. That year, it described the UN plan as being part of a vast power grab.

A paper published by the foundation in , authored by Wendell Cox, Ronald D. Utt and Brett D. Shortly after founding the John Birch Society JBS in , wealthy businessman Robert Welch set the tone for his archconservative organization for decades to come when he accused his fellow Republican, President Dwight Eisenhower, of being a commie patsy.

By the early s, JBS, the grouchy grandpa of the far right, was also attacking the United Nations as a den of socialists, communists and insiders plotting to take over America. So it should come as no surprise that these days the Birchers are at the head of the paranoid parade marching against Agenda 21, the non-binding UN resolution passed and signed by more than world leaders, including another American Republican president, George H. From its headquarters in Appleton, Wis.

The society also relies on staffers like Hal Shurtleff to get the anti-Agenda 21 word out. An Army veteran and father of five, Shurtleff is the indefatigable field director of the Birch Society on the East Coast.

Since , not long after JBS began its anti-Agenda 21 crusade in earnest, Shurtleff has conducted more than 70 presentations in public libraries, rec center basements and hotel conference rooms about the perils to freedom of Agenda There are dozens of Facebook pages dedicated to Agenda 21 as well as hundreds of Tea Party type groups. On Nov. The mass resignation was a drastic and dramatic decision that did not come easily to the men and women on the commission.

They were not a band of radical, anti-development tree-huggers, although one was a registered forester. The commission members included a certified public accountant, a real estate appraiser, a grant consultant for rural communities and two retired military officers, one of whom is the second highest-ranking official in the Alabama Republican Party. Nobody ever tied it together before. You can clearly see it is all part of the same plan. Chances are, however, unless you belong to the John Birch Society, one of the Tea Parties or some other rightist collective, you have no idea that Agenda 21 is considered a grave threat to truth, justice and the American Way — and apparently to life in Baldwin County, Ala.

Odds are also good that you, like most people — with bills to pay, kids to raise, conspiracy theories to ignore — have never read a word of the year-old, almost page United Nations document or even heard of it.

It was passed and signed at the Rio Earth Summit in by more than world leaders, including President George H. Local initiatives and plans such as Horizon , which was also nonbinding, are simply Agenda 21 in disguise, harmless looking spies laying the groundwork for a foreign invasion.

In recent years, Agenda 21 has become an effective rallying cry, organizing tool and bludgeon that right-wing groups have been using to beat back local sustainable growth and anti-sprawl initiatives, including everything from bike paths to smart meters on home appliances. The attacks have caught city councils, planning commissions and smart-growth advocates across the country off guard, leaving them scrambling to mount a defense.

By, God, this was all about Agenda 21 and the United Nations. I just think it was really sad and a disservice to the people of this county for the County Commission to have rescinded it. Our United States Constitution is a pretty short document, too. Since the death of Horizon , Baldwin County has become a sort of Rorschach test. For those who believe Agenda 21 means the beginning of the end of American freedoms — from property rights to gun ownership — Baldwin County was a triumph of the will of the people.

Retirees were flooding in to take advantage of the miles of sandy white beaches, piney woods, warm weather and relatively low cost of living in Baldwin County on the Gulf of Mexico.

Young families were also flocking to Baldwin, clogging the roads and causeways as they commuted back and forth to nearby Mobile for work. From to , the county experienced a Meanwhile, subdivisions were popping up everywhere, with little consideration given to how the many projects fit with each other, the environment and the future.

There was so much development, going up so fast, that Planning and Zoning Commission meetings would sometimes start at 6 in the evening and end at 4 the next morning. Next, the meetings were split in two: subdivisions on the first Thursday of the month, zoning on the third. In , after days of public hearings held by the Planning and Zoning Commission, thousands of man- and woman-hours, and hundreds of thousands of dollars, the Baldwin County comprehensive plan was adopted by the County Commission by a vote of 3 to 1.

It was not an ordinance. It was a plan, something to use as a guide in future development of a given area. But by then the great recession had already swept across America and development projects from Maine to California to Baldwin County came to a screeching halt. Bulldozers now sat still and silent in the Alabama sun. Planning and zoning meetings went back to once a month.

At some meetings there were no items on the agenda. One meeting lasted a record six minutes. Still, two new county commissioners, who were elected after running on a platform opposed to the plan as too restrictive and intrusive, vowed to rescind it as soon as possible. Now the balance of power was reversed, setting the stage for the Aug.

Many carried small American flags. Most wanted to see the plan killed. Craig Skaggs, a retired lobbyist for DuPont, was one of the few to speak in support of retaining the plan.

Ricky Richardson, of Fairhope, Ala. Can that baby. Ken Freeman told the audience that he had driven for six hours from his home in northern Alabama, where he owns a cattle ranch on the Tennessee River, to plead with the commissioners to rescind the plan.

Freeman is the chairman of Alliance for Citizens Rights, which, he said, has worked on property rights and constitutional issues for more than 15 years. A watered-down version of that resolution was eventually included in the party platform for the presidential election. But use that passion for more than just this one issue. While the NRA is hardly a hotbed of sustainable activism, it supports several programs that dovetail with Agenda Last year, for example, the group gave money to 4-H, the Boy Scouts of America, and the Texas Wildlife Association, all of which promote conservation and sponsor outdoor education - activities that could easily be linked to the sweeping priorities of Agenda The Texas bill could also have barred nonprofits that work with the UN from receiving any state or municipal funding.

In other words, had it passed the bill, Texas might have cut itself off from hundreds of millions of dollars in charitable funding. While it urges international cooperation , it is hardly the totalitarian, internationalist screed that critics claim. Far from promoting international governance, for example, it calls for greater local government involvement in sustainable agricultural and urban development. Given the breadth and vehemence of the anti-Agenda 21 sentiment, it is perhaps unsurprising that many sustainability organizations are reluctant to discuss it.