The Environmental Movement
 (1970s)

Not a single vote was cast against the Wilderness Act of 1964 when it finally reached the Senate. Congress thought it was setting aside nine million acres of wilderness so posterity could see a sample of what their forefathers had to conquer in order to create America. The new law was the crowning achievement of the Wilderness Society, to which its Director, Howard Zahniser had devoted five years of constant lobbying. Though unnoticed at the time, the new law signaled an end to the traditional "conservation" movement and the beginning of a new environmental "preservation" movement. The conservation movement might be characterized by the idea that private land owners should voluntarily conserve natural resources; the environmental preservation movement is characterized by the notion that the government should enforce conservation measures through extensive regulations. By this distinction, the Wilderness Society brought the environmental movement to Congress. Robert Marshall, Benton MacKaye, and Aldo Leopold -- all avowed socialists -- organized the Society in the early 1930s and proclaimed their socialist ideas loudly. Marshall's 1933 book, The People's Forests, says

"Public ownership is the only basis on which we can hope to protect the incalculable values of the forests for wood resources, for soil and water conservation, and for recreation . . . . Regardless of whether it might be desirable, it is impossible under our existing form of government to confiscate the private forests into public ownership. We cannot afford to delay their nationalization until the form of government changes."37

This significant event failed to register a blip on the radar screen of public awareness. Instead, public attention focused on the racial strife, the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, and the Viet Nam War which tore apart the convention, the party, and the nation. The First "Earth Day" in 1970, which perhaps coincidentally was celebrated on Lenin's birthday, April 22, was viewed as little more than a festival for flower children. The anti-war fervor, again, brought a quarter-million protesters to the Mall, and Watergate brought down the Nixon Presidency. The Clean Water Act of 1972 and the Endangered Species Act of 1973 served as beacons to attract the energies and idealism of a generation of young people who had successfully forced the world's most powerful government to abandon a war they saw to be unjust. The 1970s witnessed an unprecedented explosion in the number of environmental organizations and in the number of people who joined and supported these organizations.

Among the more important but lesser known organizations formed during this period are the Club of Rome (COR -- 1968) and the Trilateral Commission (TC -- 1973). The COR is a small group of international industrialists, educators, economists, national and international civil servants. Among them were various Rockefellers and approximately 25 CFR members. Maurice Strong was one of the "international" civil servants.38 Their first book, The Limits to Growth, published in 1972 unabashedly describes the world as they believe it should be:

"We believe in fact that the need will quickly become evident for social innovation to match technical change, for radical reform of the institutions and political processes at all levels, including the highest, that of world polity. And since intellectual enlightenment is without effect if it is not also political, The Club of Rome also will encourage the creation of a world forum where statesmen, policy-makers, and scientists can discuss the dangers and hopes for the future global system without the constraints of formal intergovernmental negotiation."39

That "world forum" was authorized in 1972 by UN Resolution 2997 (XXVII) as the UN Conference on the Human Environment. Maurice Strong was designated Secretary-General of the Conference which, among other things, recommended the creation of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), which came into being January 1, 1973, with Maurice Strong as its first Executive Director.40 The Conference held in Stockholm produced 26 principles and 109 specific recommendations which parroted much of the language in the COR publications. The difference is, of course, that the Conference Report carries the weight of the United Nations and has profound policy implications for the entire world.41

Another COR publication, Mankind at the Turning Point, provides further insight into the thinking that underlies global governance:

"The solution of these crises can be developed only in a global context with full and explicit recognition of the emerging world system and on a long-term basis. This would necessitate, among other changes, a new world economic order and a global resources allocation system . . . . A "world consciousness" must be developed through which every individual realizes his role as a member of the world community . . . . It must become part of the consciousness of every individual that the basic unit of human cooperation and hence survival is moving from the national to the global level."42

A companion work by the same authors, Mihajlo Mesarovic and Eduard Pestel, entitled Regionalized and Adaptive Model of the Global World System, introduced and described a system of regionalization which divided the globe into 10 regions, each with its own hierarchical system of sub-regions.43

The Trilateral Commission published a book entitled Beyond Interdependence The Meshing of the World's Economy and the Earth's Ecology, by Jim MacNeil. David Rockefeller wrote the foreword; Maurice Strong wrote the introduction. Strong said

"This interlocking . . . is the new reality of the century, with profound implications for the shape of our institutions of governance, national and international. By the year 2012, these changes must be fully integrated into our economic and political life."44

In retrospect, it is clear that the early work of the United Nations was an effort to achieve global consensus on the philosophy upon which its programmatic work would be built. It is also clear that, despite the disproportionate share of the cost borne by capitalist nations, the prevailing philosophy at the UN is essentially socialist. The fundamental idea upon which America was founded -- that men are born totally free and choose to give up specified freedoms to a limited government -- is not the prevailing philosophy at the UN, nor at the CFR, the COR, the TC, or the IUCN. Instead, the prevailing philosophy held by these organizations and institutions is that government is sovereign and may dispense or withhold freedoms and privileges, or impose restrictions and penalties, in order to manage its citizens to achieve peace and prosperity for all. In his book, Freedom at the Altar, William Grigg says it this way:

"Under the American concept of rights, the individual possesses God-given rights which the state must protect. However, the UN embraces a collectivist world view in which "rights" are highly conditional concessions made by an all-powerful government."45

Another description of the difference between the two ideas is offered by Philip Bom, in The Coming Century of Communism:

"In the western Constitutional concept, limited government is established to protect the fundamental natural human rights of the free individuals in a free society. In a radical socialist concept of the state, the citizen has a duty to the state to help the state promote the socialization or communization of the man."46

These fundamentally different, conflicting ideas have been described differently by different people at different times. In 1842, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels preached their gospel through an organization known as the "Federation of the Just." In 1845 it was the International Democratic Association of Brussels that promoted their ideas. By 1903 the organization that championed Marxism was the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party before Lenin transformed it into the Communist Party. The names used to describe the prevailing philosophy at the UN are confusing to Americans. Regardless of the name attached, the underlying philosophy has several common characteristics that readily identify it as different from the philosophy upon which America was founded. Chief among those characteristics is the abhorrence of private property. As Philip Bom points out:

"In the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels identified communism with democracy. "The communist revolution is the most radical rupture with traditional property relations . . . to win the battle of democracy". They also pointed out that, "The abolition of existing property relations is not at all a distinctive feature of communism . . . . The distinctive feature of communism is . . . abolition of private property."47

Another tell-tale characteristic of socialist/communist philosophy is the assumption of omnipotent government. Philip Bom addresses the semantics problems as well as the omnipotent government issue this way:

"The war of words and world views of democracy continues but with greater confusion of priorities. President Reagan professed that "freedom and democracy are the best guarantors for peace." President Gorbachev confessed that peace and maximum democracy are the guarantors of freedom. "Our aim is to grant maximum freedom to people, to the individual, to society."48

In the Gorbachev statement, it is assumed that "freedom" is the government's to give. The U.S. Constitution clearly views "freedom" to be the natural condition of man and assigns the protection of freedom as government's first responsibility. International equality, equity, social justice, security of the people, democratic society all are terms used in UN documents that have a completely different meaning in a socialist context from the meaning understood in America.

These differences become exceedingly important in the context of official UN documents. Consider the language in the UN's Covenant on Human Rights, a document that bears approximately the same relationship to the UN Charter that the Bill of Rights bears to the U.S. Constitution.

Article 13 says

"Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law . . . ."

By contrast, the Bill of Rights says

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . ."

Article 14 of the Covenant says

"The right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas carries with it special duties and responsibilities and may therefore be subject to certain penalties, liabilities, and restrictions, but these shall be only such, as are provided by law."

The Bill of Rights says

"Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press . . . ." Period.

The philosophy of omnipotent government permeates virtually all of the documents that have flowed from the UN since its inception. Consider the preamble to the report of the first World Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat I) held in 1976 under the auspices of Maurice Strong's newly formed United Nations Environmental Programme "Private land ownership is a principal instrument of accumulating wealth and therefore contributes to social injustice. Public control of land use is therefore indispensable." Their recommendation: "Public ownership of land is justified in favor of the common good, rather than to protect the interest of the already privileged."49 Morris Udall and others tried unsuccessfully to implement the Federal Land Use Planning Act in the early 1970s influenced by those seeking to impose global governance.

In the early 1970s the UN created a Commission to Study the Organization of Peace. As if singing in the same choir, the U.S. created a Commission to Study the Organization of Peace. On May Day, 1974, a proposal was submitted to the UN General Assembly calling for a New International Economic Order (NIEO); it was adopted as a Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States on December 12, 1974. It called for the redistribution of wealth and political power, and the promotion of international justice based on the "duties" of developed countries and the "rights" of developing countries.

Throughout the 1970s, college students and others joined environmental organizations in droves. They protested, carried placards, picked up litter, preached recycling and organic gardening, mostly unaware that their leaders were attending conferences and promoting agendas based on the same philosophy that America had opposed in Viet Nam, Cuba, and the Soviet Union. Carefully crafted documents, magnified by a cooperative media, elevated the environment to a most noble cause. The object of near-worship for an army of energetic activists, "the environment" as an international issue was ripe for the picking by the advocates of global governance.

The Environmental Movement
(Part 2) (1980s)

 <http://www.wealth4freedom.com/Report2299.html>

 <http://www.wealth4freedom.com/Report2299.html>

"Bait-and-switch" is a time-tested technique used by unscrupulous merchants to offer one thing and then provide another. The environmental movement of the 1970s was the unwitting victim of its leadership which offered a cleaner environment but, in the 1980s, delivered instead a massive program to achieve global governance. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) had already launched a Regional Seas Program (1973); conducted a UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD 1974); developed a Global Frame-work for Environmental Education (1975); established the International Environmental Education Program (IEEP); set up a Global Environmental Monitoring System (GEMS); set up a World Conservation Monitoring Center at Cambridge, England (1975 as a joint project with the IUCN and the WWF); implemented the Human Exposure Assessment Location Program (HEAL -- 1976); conducted a UN Conference on Desertification (1977); organized the Designated Officials for Environmental Matters (DOEM); and in 1980, published World Conservation Strategy jointly with the IUCN and the WWF. The DOEM is an organizational structure that requires every UN agency and organization to designate an official to UNEP in order to coordinate all UN activity with the UNEP agenda. UNEP was well positioned to interject the environment into the argument for global governance.50 Recognizing that communications was the key to global education, UNESCO adopted in 1978 a "Declaration on Fundamental Principles Concerning the Contribution of the Mass Media to Strengthen Peace and International Understanding, to the Promotion of Human Rights and to Countering Racialism, Apartheid and Incitement of War." To figure out what the declaration meant, UNESCO Director General, Dr. A. M. McBow, appointed Sean MacBride to chair the International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems. Their report was released in 1980 entitled Many Voices, One World Towards a new more just and more efficient world information and communication order. The head of TASS, the official news agency of the Soviet Union, was one of fifteen chosen to serve on the Commission.

Not surprisingly, the report said that the "media should contribute to promoting the just cause of peoples struggling for freedom and independence and their right to live in peace and equality without foreign interference." It expressed concern about independent news monopolies, such as the Associated Press and Reuters, but was not at all concerned about state controlled news monopolies such as TASS. It recommended a transnational political communication superstructure "within the framework of UNESCO," an International Centre for the Study and Planning of Information and Communication.51 The Commission believed that a "new World Information Order" was prerequisite to a new world economic order. The report reflected the same "sovereign government" philosophy demonstrated in Article 14 of the Covenant on Human Rights government, UNESCO in particular, should have the authority to regulate the flow of information to "promote" its agenda, and minimize public awareness of conflicting ideas. A proposal to require international journalists to be licensed brought swift and dramatic negative re-action which pushed this proposal to the back burner. The idea of controlling the media continues to simmer, even though an alternative plan was developed through NGOs.

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) allocated funding to establish computer network services for NGOs and academics in Latin America. The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) linked together networks in Brazil, Russia, Canada, Australia, Sweden, England, Nicaragua, Ecuador, South Africa, Ukraine, Mexico, Siovenj, and then entered into a partnership with the Institute for Global Communications (IGC). Known simply as igc.apc.org, this gigantic computer network now boasts 17,000 users in 94 countries. It has exclusive contracts with several UN agencies to coordinate, facilitate, and disseminate information about and from UN conferences. This NGO has arrangements with at least the following UN agencies:

UN Association International Service (UNAIS); UN Centre for Human Rights; UNICEF; UNDP; UN Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW); UNESCO; UNEP; UN Information Centre (UNIC); UN International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD); UN International Emergency Network (UNIENET); UN Non-Government Liaison Service (NGLS); UN Population Fund (UNFPA); UN Secretariat for the Fourth World Conference on Women (UNWCW); UN University (UNU); and UN Volunteers (UNV).52

West German Chancellor, Willy Brandt, was tapped to chair another International Commission in 1980, the Independent Commission on International Development. The Commission report, entitled North-South A Program for Survival, stated:

"World development is not merely an economic process, [it] involves a profound transformation of the entire economic and social structure . . . not only the idea of economic betterment, but also of greater human dignity, security, justice and equity . . . . The Commission realizes that mankind has to develop a concept of a "single community" to develop a global order."

The report says that the choice is either development or destruction; either "a just and humane society" or a move towards [the world's] own destruction."53

For 50 years, Sweden was a socialist country. In 1976, the socialists were dumped and conservatives took over -- until 1982. Olof Palme restored socialism to Sweden and was promptly rewarded with the chairmanship of the Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security (ICDST). In their report, entitled A Common Security Blueprint For Survival, the Commission built on Kennedy's 1962 Blueprint for the Peace Race, and on the 1974 Charter for a New International Economic Order, which linked disarmament with development.

The Charter's Article 13 says:

"All States have the duty to promote the achievement of general and complete disarmament under effective international control and to utilize the resources released by effective disarmament measures for the economic and social development of countries, allocating a substantial portion of such resources as additional means for the development needs of developing countries."

The Brandt Commission report had concluded that security meant not only the military defense of a nation, but also required solving the non-military problems -- such as poverty -- to improve the basic conditions necessary for peaceful relations among nations. Their conclusion was bolstered by the report of a UN advisor, Inga Thorsson, a Swedish Under-Secretary of State, who wrote:

"It is important that we do not content ourselves only with the actual disarmament efforts. World disarmament is needed for world development -- but equally, world development is a prerequisite for world disarmament. Not until we have arrived at a situation of reasonable equity and economic balance in the world, will it be possible to develop conditions for a lasting disarmament."54

The United States and the Soviet Union had hammered out a policy generally known as "peaceful coexistence," to avoid MAD -- Mutually Assured Destruction. The Palme Commission proposed a strategic shift from collective security, insured by the superpowers for the constellation of affiliated nations, to the concept of common security through the United Nations. The concept also linked the transfer of money saved by the disarming superpowers to the development of underdeveloped nations, transferred through and redistributed by the United Nations.55

A work that began in 1973 was completed in 1981 -- the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The U.S. and the USSR wanted the Convention limited to navigational questions. But a group of 77 developing nations, known as G-77, hijacked the conference and the subsequent negotiations and wrote into the treaty the principles of the New International Economic Order (NIEO) - a UN taxing authority. The treaty created the International Seabed Authority (ISA) which would have jurisdiction over all non-territorial waters and the seabed. No seabed activity, mining, salvaging, and so forth, can occur without a permit from the ISA.

Application fees begin at $250,000 and a schedule of royalties is set forth in the Convention. The Convention is the first to give direct taxing authority to the UN. It is a legal mechanism for the redistribution of wealth from developed nations to developing nations. The U.S. had avoided the Convention until 1994 when President Clinton signed the Treaty. Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, has announced that ratification of the treaty will be a priority for the Clinton Administration in 1997.56

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) had grown dramatically by 1982, with organizations in several countries, including the United States. Russell Train, the President of WWF-USA, secured more than $25 million in grants from MacArthur Foundation, Andrew K. Mellon Foundation, and from "US and Foreign governments, international agencies, and individual gifts," to launch a new NGO - the World Resources Institute (WRI) headquartered in Washington, D.C. James Gustave Speth was chosen as President. Speth, a Rhodes Scholar, turned to the environment after the Viet Nam war and co-founded the Natural Resources Defense Council. He became a Rockefeller protégé and is described as "one of the most effective environmentalists alive today." He served as President of WRI for 11 years, then as a member of President Clinton’s transition team, then moved to the UNDP as its head.57 The WRI joined the WWF and the IUCN to become the three-cornered NGO foundation for the global environmental agenda.

A World Charter for Nature was the chief product of a 1982 World Conference on Environment and Development, at which Maurice Strong said

"I believe we are seeing the convergence of the physical and social worlds with the moral and spiritual. The concepts of loving, caring and sharing . . . for a saner, more cooperative world . . . are the indispensable foundations on which the future security system for a small planet must now be based."58

In 1984, there was a World Conference on environmental management. But a Conference in Vienna, Austria, in 1985 established UNEP as a major player in world affairs when it produced the Vienna Convention on Ozone Depleting Substances. The ascendancy of Mikhail Gorbachev to the Soviet throne received far more media attention than did the Ozone Treaty. Most Americans did not hear about the Treaty until the Montreal Protocol in 1987 which banned certain refrigerants and fire-fighting materials.

Another World Conference on Environment and Development was held in 1987. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Vice President of the World Socialist Party, was named as Chair. The Brundtland Commission Report, entitled Our Common Future, embraced most of the ideas contained in the UNEP/IUCN/WWF publication World Conservation Strategy, including the concept of "sustainable development." It is the Brundtland Commission that links the environment to development and development to poverty. The Report says:

"Poverty is a major cause and effect of global environmental problems. It is therefore futile to attempt to deal with environmental problems without a broader perspective that encompasses the factors underlying world poverty and international inequality."59

Brundtland was a member of the Brandt Commission. Maurice Strong (who chaired the first world Conference on Environment and Development in 1972) was a member of the Brundtland Commission. Shirdath Ramphal was a member of the Brandt, Palme, and Brundtland Commissions, and later co-chaired the UN-funded Commission of Global Governance. Ramphal is a past President of the IUCN. The Brundtland Commission succeeded in two break-through accomplishments(1) it linked poverty, equity, and security to environmental issues and (2) it recognized that the environment was a popular issue around which individuals, NGOs, and governments could rally. The environment was firmly established as the battle-cry to mobilize the world to create the New Economic World Order.

While UNEP was convening the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988, the UNDP was funding a Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders for Human Survival, sponsored jointly by the UNDP"s Global Committee of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (created in 1982) and the Temple of Understanding. The Temple of Understanding is an NGO accredited to the UN, and one of several projects of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. The featured speaker at the Forum was James Lovelock, author of The Ages of Gaia. Lovelock said On Earth, she [gaia] is the source of life, everlasting and is alive now, she gave birth to humankind and we are a part of her."60 The Gaia Institute is also housed at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, as is the Lindisfarne Association which published G-A-I-A, A Way of Knowing Political Implications of the New Biology. Maurice Strong is a member of Lindisfarne and often speaks at the Cathedral, as do Robert Muller and Vice President Al Gore.61

The Forum produced what was called the "Joint Appeal" which grew into the National Religious Partnership for the Environment (NRPE). The project is endorsed by eleven major environmental organizations, has received grants of more than $5 million, and is currently engaged in mailing "education and action kits" to 53,000 congregations. Amy Fox, Associate Director of the NRPE, says

"We are required by our religious principles to look for the links between equity and ecology. The fundamental emphasis is on issues of environmental justice, including air pollution and global warming; water, food and agriculture; population and consumption; hunger, trade and industrial policy; community economic development; toxic pollution and hazardous waste; and corporate responsibility."62

The decade had begun with an eruption of Mt. St. Helens, and perhaps a more spectacular political eruption arch-conservative Ronald Reagan captured the White House from arch-liberal, Jimmy Carter. Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), more popularly known as "star wars," is cited as a major factor in the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union. The USSR, which Reagan dubbed "the evil empire," did assume a new attitude about arms reduction and disarmament. Gorbachev announced "glasnost," a new policy of openness, and "perestroika" a restructuring program which featured measured "free market" opportunities. Gorbachev, who was infinitely closer to the socialist dominated inner-circle of the UN-global-governance cabal than was the Reagan Administration, may well have been preparing to shift the seat of socialist leadership from the Soviet Union to the United Nations. The newly formulated strategy of common security, rather than collective security could not accommodate the notion of a single state, even the Soviet Union, as the seat of global authority. And it is now clear that, even though it appeared to the west that Gorbachev was moving his country toward capitalism, he never had any such intention.

Gorbachev told his Politburo in November, 1987:

"Gentlemen, comrades, do not be concerned about all you hear about Glasnost and Perestroika and democracy in the coming years. They are primarily for outward consumption. There will be no significant internal changes in the Soviet Union, other than for cosmetic purposes. Our purpose is to disarm the Americans and let them fall asleep."

He later wrote:

"Those who hope that we shall move away from the socialist path will be greatly disappointed. Every part of our program of perestroika -- and the program as a whole, for that matter -- is fully based on the principle of more socialism and more democracy . . . . We will proceed toward better socialism rather than away from it. We are saying this honestly, without trying to fool our own people or the world. Any hopes that we will begin to build a different, non-socialist society and go over to the other camp are unrealistic and futile. We, the Soviet people, are for socialism. We want more socialism and therefore more democracy."63

By November 9, 1989, when the Berlin Wall collapsed, it became clear to the world that events had out-run Gorbachev's intentions. The Soviet Union, along with 70 years of utopian-communist dreams, collapsed as thoroughly as did the wall. The vacuum thus created in the global political balance was seen as an invitation to usher in a new, permanent balancing force -- global governance.

The role and capacity of NGOs was greatly enhanced in the mid 1980s when Donald Ross of the Rockefeller Family Fund -- the same Rockefeller money pot that launched the Council on Foreign Relations -- invited the leaders of five other Foundations to meet informally in Washington. From that meeting grew the Environmental Grantmakers Association, a nearly invisible group of more than 100 major Foundations and corporations. They meet annually to discuss projects and grant proposals and decide which NGOs will be funded.64

Having gained a measure of national prominence in his failed bid for the White House in 1988, then Senator Al Gore, as chair of the Senate Science and Technology Committee, assumed the responsibility of advancing the global environmental agenda in America. It was Gore, and then-Senator Timothy Wirth, who arranged special "prayer breakfasts" with selected congressmen for James Parks Morton, Dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, to promote the National Religious Partnership for the Environment.65 It was Gore who led the Senate to approve the Montreal Protocol which banned refrigerants. It was Gore who brought James E. Hansen, head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, to the Senate chambers to testify that he was "99% certain that greenhouse warming had begun."66

The decade of the 1980s was a pivotal period for the advocates of global governance. The MacBride Commission had established the principle of information management as a legitimate responsibility of the United Nations, though only partially implemented through participating NGOs IGC/APC. The Brandt Commission had linked development with peace, and the Palme Commission had linked development with peace and disarmament as a way to shift military power to the UN and money to the third world. The Brundtland Commission linked development to the environment and introduced the concept of "sustainability." The NGOs, coordinated by the IUCN/WWF/WRI triumvirate, and funded by the Rockefeller-coordinated Environmental Grantmakers Association, launched a world-wide campaign to convince the world that the planet stood at the brink of environmental disaster. It could be averted only by a massive transformation of human societies which would require all people to accept their spiritual and moral responsibility to embrace their common global heritage and conform to a system of international law that integrates environmental, economic, and equity issues under the watchful, regulatory authority of a new system of global governance.

 
Copyright (C) July 4, 1996 All rights reserved by Henry Lamb
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