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Henry Lamb Columns in 1996

Contents Invasion of green religion ............................................................................................................3 Invasion of green religion: the message of Cosmolatry ...............................................................5 Invasion of green religion: the UN connection.............................................................................7 Invasion of green religion: the big lie ..........................................................................................9 Toward Global Governance....................................................................................................... 11 Toward Global Governance: The global bureaucracy ................................................................ 13 Toward Global Governance: Global taxation ............................................................................. 15 Toward Global Governance: A flawed idea ............................................................................... 17 The year of decision .................................................................................................................. 19 The year of decision: It's time to stop ........................................................................................ 21 The year of decision: America's role beyond the UN ................................................................. 23 The year of decision: A strategy for freedom ............................................................................ 25 Redefining American Values ..................................................................................................... 27 Redefining American Values: The Pursuit of Happiness ............................................................ 29 Redefining American Values: Government Complicity ............................................................ 31 Redefining American Values: The 21st Century ........................................................................ 33 Governance by non-elected officials .......................................................................................... 35 NGOs: Organizing for governance ............................................................................................ 37 NGOs and Bioregions ............................................................................................................... 39 How can Bioregionalism be stopped? ........................................................................................ 41 Kindred Spirits: Unabomber and Earth First!............................................................................. 43 Kindred Spirits: Unabomber and Dave Foreman ....................................................................... 45 Kindred Spirits: Unabomber and Al Gore .................................................................................. 47 Kindred Spirits: Unabomber and Bill Clinton ............................................................................ 49 Sustainable Communities; Vanquished Freedom ....................................................................... 51 Sustainable Communities: Yours could be next! ....................................................................... 53 Sustainable Communities in the Bioregion ................................................................................ 55 Sustainable Communities Means Managed Societies ................................................................. 57 Global governance at work Civil Society ................................................................................... 61 Global warming: is it real? ........................................................................................................ 67

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Global warming: what it means ................................................................................................. 69 Global warming: a matter of consensus ..................................................................................... 71 Global warming and NGOs ....................................................................................................... 73 Propaganda Parade: Global Warming ........................................................................................ 75 Propaganda Parade: Managed Markets ...................................................................................... 77 Propaganda Parade: Education .................................................................................................. 79 Propaganda Parade: The New Earth Ethic ................................................................................. 81 The Information Age ................................................................................................................. 83 The Information Age: up close and personal.............................................................................. 85 The Information Age: for your own protection .......................................................................... 87 The Information Age: environmental propaganda ...................................................................... 89 The War on Automobiles .......................................................................................................... 91 The War on Industry ................................................................................................................. 93 Who's Financing the War?......................................................................................................... 95 Is There A Better Way? ............................................................................................................. 97

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(161 January, 1996)

Invasion of green religion By Henry Lamb A hundred million people in 53,000 congregations have been targeted for takeover by a sinister old Satan all dressed up in a new frock of institutional respectability. Recognizing that all religions exist, as the Boston Globe puts it, "to ask one question: What is the place of the human species in the created order," an incredible New Age machine has emerged to provide the answer. The National Religious Partnership for the Environment is an impressive conglomeration of religious communities that has garnered more than $5 million from such prestigious foundations as The Pew Charitable Trusts, Stephen C. Rockefeller, the Turner Foundation, W. Alton Jones Foundation, and The New World Foundation.

The Partnership is a formal agreement among the U.S. Catholic Conference; National Council of Churches of Christ; Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life; and the Evangelical Environmental Network. The Partnership has established a "consultative" relationship with the Union of Concerned Scientists and lists such prominent scientists as E.O. Wilson, Carl Sagan, Thomas Malone, and Henry Kendall as their consultants. The chief executive officers of eleven major Green Advocacy Groups (GAGs) co-signed a letter of support for the Partnership. Among the GAGs were: the National Audubon Society; Natural Resources Defense Council; the Sierra Club; the Environmental Defense Fund; and the World Resources Institute.

Partnership literature says its program "seeks to broaden exponentially the base of mainstream commitment, integrate issues of social justice and environment, and urge behavioral change in the lives of congregants." To achieve this objective, the Partnership has prepared and distributed "education and action kits" to 53,000 congregations including every Catholic parish and every Jewish synagogue in the nation. The kits contain Sunday School and sermon resource material designed to mesh with the doctrine of the particular denomination being targeted. Another goal is "legislative updates." In June of 1994, 40 Partnership officials met with 25 senior White House officials (including Vice President Al Gore, Bruce Babbitt, Carol Browner, and Undersecretary of State, Tim Wirth) to "begin an ongoing process of dialogue and appropriate collaboration." This activity is the fruition of ideas that emerged from the Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders for Human Survival that was held in 1988, co-sponsored by the Temple of Understanding and the United Nations Global Committee of Parliamentarians on Population and Development. James Lovelock, author of The Ages of Gaia, and the originator of the Gaia Hypothesis, was the featured speaker. The Very Reverend James P. Morton was, and continues to be the President of the Temple of Understanding, Dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and is now a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment. The Fall, 1994 newsletter of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine claimed that the National Religious Partnership for the Environment was "a Cathedral-based institution" with the "reach to serve over 100 million interfaith congregants on a regular basis." The address for

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the National Religious Partnership for the Environment is the same as the Temple of Understanding: 1047 Amsterdam Avenue, New York City. It is unmistakably clear that the new Partnership is the product of the Temple of Understanding housed in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. The Cathedral is also the home of The Gaia Institute and the Lindesfarne Association, both of which produce New Age, mystic propaganda. The Partnership was nurtured by then-Senator Al Gore who, along with Tim Wirth, hosted a 1990 Congressional breakfast with Partnership promoters. Vice President Al Gore delivered a sermon at the Cathedral in 1994, in which he proclaimed "...God is not separate from the earth," the central tenet of the gaia religion. The Board of Directors of the Temple of Understanding permeate both the Global Forum Council, and the Advisory Board of the UN's Global Committee of Parliamentarians. The Temple of Understanding brings together such divergent influences as the Dalai Lama and the Pope, Islamic leaders and Evangelical preachers. What these individuals have in common is an overarching belief in a new religion, or cosmology, as it is more appropriately described. Through the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, this new cosmology is being systematically injected into 53,000 congregations across the nation behind the announced objective of engaging churches in the environmental crisis.

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(162 January, 1996)

Invasion of green religion: the message of Cosmolatry By Henry Lamb The National Religious Partnership for the Environment claims that it seeks to engage "tens of thousands" of congregations in the "environmental crisis." Behind the facade of tree-planting and recycling, lies a pantheistic theology that is pure nature worship. The Temple of Understanding, which pushed the Partnership into existence, is housed in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. The Cathedral has been transformed into a shrine for "sacred ecology." A blue crab, striped bass, mussels and other animals and plants live in a specially constructed Earth Shrine habitat. One wall, 25 feet high, is decorated with real tropical rain forest flora consisting of bromeliads, orchids, ferns, mosses, and aquatic plants as an example of "sacred ecology ." Writer in Residence at the Cathedral, William Logan, described a service at which Vice President Al Gore delivered the sermon, as appearing to be an "epic petting zoo." A camel and elephant walked the aisles of the Cathedral, and worshipers marched to the altar with "a bowl full of compost and worms." Among the illustrious Directors of the Temple of Understanding is the Geologian, Passionate Priest The Reverend Thomas Berry. In his book, Dream of the Earth (published by Sierra Club Books), Berry never uses the word "God," but speaks of a numinous force in the universe. He says that "We should place less emphasis on Christ as a person and a redeemer. We should put the Bible away for 20 years while we radically rethink our religious ideas." According to Frank Morriss, in an article entitled "Restructuring the Church Into Their Own Image," Father Thomas Berry claims that "It is now time for the most significant change that Christian spirituality has yet experienced. This change is part of a much more comprehensive change in human consciousness brought about by the discovery of the evolutionary story of the universe. In speaking about a new cosmology he reminds us that we are the earth come to consciousness and, therefore, we are connected to the whole living community - that is, all people, animals, plants and the living organism of planet earth itself." (Emphasis added.) The gaia hypothesis, developed by James Lovelock, claims that the planet earth is a living organism, that human beings, like cockroaches and rattlesnakes, are nothing more than cells which collectively constitute the organism. Lovelock, Berry, and the promoters of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment believe that the earth is the creative force which produced all life forms and as such, it is the earth that should be worshiped, not the external creator God of the Bible. This belief adds considerable significance to Al Gore's declaration in his sermon at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine that "God is not separate from the earth." Amy Fox coordinated a Temple of Understanding program called "Environment 89." She is now Associate director of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment. She is quoted in a Cathedral newsletter: "We are required by our religious principles to look for the links between equity and ecology." She says that in the materials sent to more than 53,000 congregations, 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

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policy; community economic development; toxic pollution and hazardous waste; and corporate responsibility. It is no accident that the agenda being advanced by the Partnership is identical to the Global Environmental Agenda being advanced by the United Nations. The Temple of Understanding is an official NGO, registered with the UN. Its literature boasts that it conducts regular "roundtables" at the UN Headquarters featuring outstanding religious leaders and scholars. It was the Temple of Understanding that co-sponsored, with the UN, the Global Forum for Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders which was co-chaired by James Parks Morton, President of the Temple of Understanding and Dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. The Cathedral also houses the Lindesfarne Association, whose one-time Financial Director was Maurice Strong, who was the Secretary General of the first UN Earth Summit which produced the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). He also served as UNEP's first Executive Director, and also chaired the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janerio in 1992. For years, Strong has owned a Colorado ranch known as Baca Grande on which the Lindesfarne Association built a Babylonian sun God Temple. The ranch is home to a monastery and a variety of New Age religious activities. Strong now head the Earth Council, a Costa Rica-based NGO that is promoting a treaty on sustainable development, and is a Director of World Resources Institute, whose President, Jonathan Lash now co-chairs the President's Council on Sustainable Development.

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(163 January, 1996)

Invasion of green religion: the UN connection By Henry Lamb Throughout America, more than 53,000 congregations are using material in their education program and from the pulpit supplied by the National Religious Partnership for the Environment. Most use the material in the belief that somehow it will help congregants become more engaged in the "environmental crisis." In reality, these churches have opened their doors to the proverbial trojan horse, filled with propaganda skillfully designed to instill the rationale for nature worship and to advance the global agenda of social reorganization. Few of the Christians and Jews, or their Priests, Pastors, or Rabbis, realize that they are being used to advance a cosmology condemned by both the New and Old Testaments, and to advance a social order of global governance. At the heart of the new cosmology is the idea that the earth is the creative force of life - or gaia, as named by James Lovelock. Thomas Berry, gaia's chief guru, says that "the sacred character of the natural world as our primary revelation of the divine is our first need." Berry says that "biblical insights should be shelved in favor of a spirituality which accepts the natural world as the primary manifestation of the divine." He says "If we are to avoid an environmental Armageddon, we must adopt a new attitude which celebrates the sacredness of the universe." Berry is referred to in Creation magazine as "The herald of...the Ecozoic age [who] speaks of the need to recapture the unassimilated elements of paganism that can help us experience the spirit that is forming the new era and hear the voice of the Earth that is calling us into the future." These are the ideas that underlie the notion that human beings, as merely one batch of cells which constitute the living organism of earth, are, like a cancer, multiplying out of control and destroying the sacred giver of life - gaia. Consequently, terms such as "environmental Armageddon," and "environmental crisis," are used to justify severe behavioral changes recommended in the material furnished to churches by the National Religious Partnership, and by the policies now being implemented through the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Through these and other UN organizations, policy initiatives are being implemented around the world, including the United States, that are designed to force human beings to behave in ways that reverence the sacred gaia. The Biodiversity Treaty calls for the return of half of the land in America to "core wilderness," off limits to human beings. The Climate Change Treaty calls for the reduction of fossil fuel use in developed nations by as much as 80 percent. The Endangered Species Act forces farmers to stop cultivating farm fields that are inhabited by the kangaroo rat. And the President's Council on Sustainable Development is recommending a Presidential Commission to study how population can be redistributed to reduce its impact on biodiversity - another euphemism for gaia. Nowhere is this gaia influence more sinister than upon the nation's youth.

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Prentice Hall publishes a textbook for seventh graders called Life Sciences. It says: "Gaia is Mother Earth. Gaia is immortal. She is the eternal source of life. She does not need to reproduce herself as she is immortal. She is certainly the mother of us all, including Jesus...Gaia is not a tolerant mother. She is rigid and inflexible, ruthless in the destruction of whoever transgresses. Her unconscious objective is that of maintaining a world adapted to life. If we men hinder this objective we will be eliminated without pity." Public education was targeted by UNEP and UNESCO in the 1970s as the place to begin indoctrinating people with the gaia principle. Robert Muller, Assistant to three UN Secretaries General, developed what is called the "World Core Curriculum" to guide the development of educational programs around the world. Robert Muller says "The United Nations is the biological meta organism of the human species. We are becoming a new species on this planet. We have now the birth of a global nervous system. We are beginning to have a global heart, be it only our love for nature, to preserve this earth - this planet of ours - and we will also see the birth of a global soul." Muller is the Chancellor of the UN University. Through the UN Commission on Education, his World Core Curriculum is proposed to be the basis for education "for all the schools on this planet."

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(164 January, 1996)

Invasion of green religion: the big lie By Henry Lamb If a lie is big enough, and repeated often enough, it will gather unto itself a group of believers. Those who believe and respond to such a lie are either simply misguided or being manipulated. Those who believe the lie despite scientific evidence to the contrary, are fanatics. Those who know the truth and preach the lie to achieve their own private agenda are manipulators of the first order, operating without the benefit of morality. Most of the people victimized by the National Religious Partnership for the Environment are being misguided and manipulated. Some of the proponents of the Partnership are simply fanatics who reject scientific evidence in favor of the "knowing" that comes from the "enlightenment" of gaia. Pushing the program are a handful of manipulators who know the truth but persist in preaching the lie. The lie, of course, is that the earth is on the threshold of an "environmental Armageddon," or in the last stages of an "environmental crisis." Perhaps the biggest lie is the cataclysmic descriptions of the consequences of global warming: ice caps will melt, seas will rise, population centers will be inundated, storms will intensify, deserts will spread, and crops will refuse to grow - because humans are burning fossil fuel. Dr. Stephen Schneider, the most frequently quoted proponent of the global warming scare, told a group of scientists: "[We] have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." Dr. Schneider knows full well that the actual scientific record reveals no global warming beyond normal variability - about one half of one degree this century, most of which occurred during the first half of the century, before the post-war explosion of fossil fuel use. Nevertheless, the big lie persists. The real reason fossil fuel energy is under such severe attack is the fact that energy is the central ingredient in the manufacture and distribution of consumer goods. Consumer goods are made from natural resources. Natural resources are biodiversity - plants and animals that are cells in the living organism of earth - the sacred gaia. Human beings, like cancerous cells, are destroying other cells in the organism by converting those cells into consumer goods. The objective is to reduce consumption by eliminating the use of fuel energy. Another big lie, advanced by Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute and Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb, and repeated with the authority of the UN in the Global Biodiversity Assessment is the notion that human population now exceeds the planet's ability to provide sufficient food. In the 1970s, Ehrlich predicted that Americans would be starving by the thousands within a decade. He was wrong. Lester Brown has been forecasting doom and disaster for years. He is still wrong. The UN's Global Biodiversity Assessment (GBA) says the planet can support no more than one billion people at the American standard of living, or about five billion at a standard of agrarian subsistence. Brown, Ehrlich, and the authors of the GBA are well aware of the work done by celebrated scientist Roger Revelle, former Director of the

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Harvard Center for Population Studies, who concluded that the planet could support a population of at least 40 billion people with a daily diet of 2,500 kilocalories, using no more than 25 percent of the land area, with crop yields of only half the yields produced in America. They know that Revelle's work is supported by the findings of Colin Clark, former director of the Agricultural Economic Institute at Oxford University whose conclusions estimated that the earth could support at least 35.1 billion people at a standard similar to America's. Neither truth nor scientific evidence supports the gaia agenda. That's why both are cast aside by the big lie that frightens people into protecting a planet that is in no danger. Proponents of the gaia principle - the green religion - have, and will continue to resort to any distortion and misrepresentation that serves their cause: the advance of a global reverence of gaia as the foundation of global governance. Schools, the media, the government, and now, through the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, the churches, have all been infiltrated by the gaia gospel. It is a big lie, and it is repeated often. Woe be unto the Great Deceivers.

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(165 February, 1966)

Toward Global Governance By Henry Lamb There can no longer be any doubt that there is, and has been for several years, a well-conceived, expertly executed, long-range plan to build the United Nations network of organizations into a system of global governance. The plan is nearing its final stage of implementation, aided enormously by the current administration. Deputy Secretary of State, Strobe Talbott, wrote an article for Time magazine entitled "The Birth of the Global Nation" (July, 20, 1992) in which he said the case for world government had been made and that nationhood as we know it will be obsolete in the next century. Talbott won the "Global Governance Award" from the World Federalist Association in 1993. Immediately following the 1992 election, Gus Speth, then-President of World Resources Institute, was appointed to Clinton's transition team, and then moved directly to head the United Nations Development Program. Speth declared in the U.N.'s 1994 Human Development Report: "Indeed, we have a unique opportunity to strike some new global compacts...financed by global fees such as the `Tobin tax', an international tax on consumption and non-renewable energy, global environmental permits...These proposals demand a great deal from the international community. But they are all doable." Clinton appointed Morton Halperin as Assistant Secretary of Defense. His views on global governance were so intense that the Senate failed to confirm the appointment. Clinton then appointed him to the National Security Council - which did not need Senate confirmation. In May, 1994, Clinton issued Presidential Decision Directive (PDD25), a secret, classified document that is not available, even to Congress. While the actual document has not been released, a summary of the administration plan calls for the "creation by the UN of a Plans Division, an Information and Research Division, an Operations Division, a Logistical Division, a Public Affairs Cell, a Civil Police Cell, and a Professional Peace Operations Training Program. The U.N. should have a `rapidly deployable headquarters team' and its own modest airlift capabilities." It is this document that the administration says gives the President the authority to assign U.S. military personnel to the United Nations. Many Americans believe the U.S. Constitution prohibits U.S. soldiers from serving any "foreign" government, and that neither Congress nor the President can authorize what is explicitly prohibited by the Constitution. In an effort to bypass this controversy, the U.N. has adopted the Convention on the Safety of U.N. and Associated Personnel," an international binding treaty, soon to be presented to the Senate for ratification. The issue of U.N. authority is much greater than simply one of global cooperation; it is an issue of sovereignty. The Constitution authorizes a national army for the purpose of national defense. But the effort to relinquish that authority to the U.N. goes back as far as 1961 when the U.S. State Department issued a proposal (Publication #7277, September, 1961) which called for: "The disbanding of all national armed forces and the prohibition of their reestablishment in any form

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whatsoever other than those required to preserve internal order and for contributions to a United Nations Peace Force." The Cuban missile crisis, Kennedy's assassination, and the fall of Nikita Krushchev forced this initiative into obscurity for two decades. Since the 1980's, the U.N. has been preparing, and is now implementing, a much more comprehensive plan to replace the notion of national sovereignty with the enlightened concept of global governance. Maurice Strong has said publicly, that: "It is simply not feasible for sovereignty to be exercised unilaterally by individual nation-states, however powerful." Maurice Strong is the leading contender to replace Boutros Boutros-Ghali in 1996 as Secretary General of the United Nations General Assembly. For more than a year, a "Draft Strong" movement has been underway around the world. There are already at least 102 of the 185 member nations committed to Strong - more than enough to ensure his coronation. While the main stream media ridicules those who fear black helicopters and blue-helmeted invaders, they fail to report the insidious and relentless progress being made by U.N. organizations to systematically suppress the freedom of individuals and nations by building a global bureaucracy to govern virtually every aspect of human life.

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(166 February, 1996)

Toward Global Governance: The global bureaucracy By Henry Lamb The United Nations is more, much more, than the blue helmets and white vehicles seen on the nightly news. It is more than the massive relief efforts, and the interminable debates of the Security Council. It is hundreds of different organizations that have emerged around the world, each with its own staff, working in its assigned area, to achieve a well coordinated agenda to ultimately govern the activities of all people everywhere. Efforts to consolidate global governance authority under the U.N., behind the banner of `world peace,' failed in the 1960s. After a decade of regrouping, the globalists took up a new banner: `environmental protection.' Maurice Strong emerged as the leader of the first Earth Summit in Stockholm in 1972. He then founded, and directed the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). He has since been, perhaps the single most influential person driving the global environmental agenda. He was the Secretary General of the second Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro in 1992, and now stands ready to assume the throne as Secretary General of the United Nations General Assembly in total command of all the far-flung United Nations organizations. UNEP quickly recognized that if the environmental agenda was to be advanced, it must have the capability of directing other U.N. organizations. One of its early strategy successes was the creation of the DOEM - Designated Officials on Environmental Matters. This body is headed by UNEP's Deputy Director, and consists of official representatives from virtually every U.N. organization. Through the DOEM, the UENP can ensure that all U.N. organizations develop and implement programs consistent with the global environmental agenda. That coordination has been abundantly clear in recent years, especially since the 1992 Earth Summit. Every global conference is steeped in language that reflects the Rio Declaration. "Biodiversity" and "Sustainability" dominate every emerging U.N. document as well as those treaties and agreements adopted since Rio. There are dozens of documents under development, and others already finalized that are now being implemented through an incredible array of bureaucracies around the world. The Framework Convention on Climate Change is administered under the auspices of UNEP. The Convention has its own secretariat, or administrative staff. The Convention provides for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which has an extensive and growing staff and a new office building. It also authorizes a Conference of the Parties (COP), which has its own staff. The Vienna Convention on Ozone Depleting Substances, administered by UNEP, is becoming another institution with its own secretariat and staff. The Convention on Biological Diversity is also administered by UNEP. At its second meeting of the Conference of the Parties, it chose Montreal as the permanent home of the Convention, and will build its facilities for still another bureaucracy. The Global Environmental Facility (GEF) is a U.N. financial institution which now redistributes wealth, and is proposed to hold title to the "global commons" and become the issuer of resource use permits. UNEP also administers dozens of fishing treaties,

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and treaties dealing with endangered species (CITES), and wetlands (RAMSAR), and shipments of hazardous waste (BASEL), and each treaty has its own secretariat, staff, and bureaucracy scattered throughout the world. And UNEP is only one of at least 126 different U.N. organizations involved in the implementation of the global environmental agenda. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP), headed by the Clinton transition team leader, and former President of the World Resources Institute, Gus Speth, is responsible for dozens of other programs that deal with population control, education, sustainable development, and international trade. The Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Cairo last March, was an UNDP event. Clinton appointee, Timothy Wirth, headed the U.S. delegation which pushed the controversial proposal to include language about population control which, under the Reagan administration, had caused withdrawal of support for the United Nations Fund for Population Activities. Clinton has since restored those funds, some of which go directly to support programs in China that force women to use contraceptive devices and penalize families that fail to get government permits to have children. It is through the UNDP, particularly its 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, that the most serious global taxation proposals are being advanced. The only control member states have over the U.N. is funding. As President Reagan demonstrated, the United States can withhold funding to force the U.N. policies to conform to U.S. philosophy. If the U.N. can escape the funding shackle, it will be free to impose whatever policies it deems appropriate and the United States can do nothing about it.

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(167 February, 1996)

Toward Global Governance: Global taxation By Henry Lamb Like the proverbial camel, global taxation has already stuck its nose under the United Nations' tent. The Law of the Seas Treaty, which became international law without U.S. ratification on November 16, 1994, may impose a tax, in the form of an application fee of $250,000, on American companies that wish to mine the ocean floor. This treaty creates a bureaucracy called the International Seabed Authority which can charge annual fees or demand royalties from any company that uses the seabed. Global taxation is not an issue subject to referendum, or on which Americans may vote. It is an issue that is being implemented through obscure mechanisms which are unseen by most Americans, but which will, none the less, impose severe economic hardship. Global taxation is creeping into most developing U.N. documents, and the concept is supported by a growing constituency. Among the several different taxing proposals now pending, the most significant is a tax of .05% on foreign exchange transactions. This proposal, advanced by Nobel Prize winning economist, James Tobin, would be an "unseen" tax, yet it would yield $1.5 trillion annually to fund United Nations operations. Currently, the entire U.N. budget is approximately $11 billion. The Tobin tax would provide a 150-fold increase in the United Nations' ability to implement its programs. The U.N. could ignore the U.S. in any programmatic dispute. Gus Speth, President Clinton's handpicked head of the United Nations Development Program, is a vocal supporter of global taxation. A 1994 report issued by his agency said a "...serious search should begin for new sources of international funding that do not rely entirely on the fluctuating political will of the rich nations. Global taxation may become necessary in any case to achieve the goals of global human security. Some of the promising new sources include tradable permits for global pollution, a global tax on non-renewable energy, demilitarization funds and a small transaction tax on speculative international movements of foreign exchange funds." At the World Summit for Social Development, then-President, Socialist Francois Mitterand urged the 115 government leaders in attendance to "make a real commitment" to global taxation. According to a report dated March 6, 1995, issued by the Global Commission to Fund the United Nations, a select group of 15 U.S. Senators and 51 House members were given a "behind the scenes" presentation on global taxation alternatives. Commissioners include: Bella Abzug, outspoken participant in the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, Robert Muller, Chancellor of the U.N. University and author of the World Core Curriculum, former Senator Alan Cranston, author of the California Wilderness Act, and now President of the Gorbachev Foundation, and Inge Kaul, Director of UNDP's Human Development Report. Kaul wrote in a Commission report, that to rectify the "present financial constraint on U.N. activity, [it is time] to shift the burden of financing the U.N. from national to global sources - by introducing charges for the use of global commons or levies on international activities such as trade and foreign currency transaction."

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Another UNDP official, Ruben Mendez, said in an April publication called Choices: "It is time to make an intellectual quantum leap, and to look beyond the nation-state for new, innovative and independent transnational sources of funds." Mendez has proposed a slightly modified version of the Tobin tax plan to still another organization pushing for global taxation: the U.N Commission on Global Governance. This 28-member Commission includes Maurice Strong, the leading contender to replace Boutros Boutros-Ghali as Secretary General; Oscar Arias, former President of Costa Rica, and Adele Simmons, President of the MacArthur Foundation, among others. The Commission's official report, called Our Global Neighborhood, says: "It is time for a consensus on global taxation for servicing the needs of the global neighborhood. A start must be made in establishing schemes of global financing of global purposes, including charges on the use of global resources such as flight-lanes, sea lanes, and ocean fishing areas and the collection of revenues agreed globally and implemented by treaty. An international tax on foreign currency transactions should be explored as one option, as should the creation of an international corporate tax base among multinational corporations." This report, too, uses the environment to advance its global governance agenda. The report says further: "The idea of safeguarding and managing the global commons -- particularly those related to the physical environment -- is now widely accepted; this cannot happen with a drip-feed approach to financing. And the notion of expanding the role of the United Nations is now accepted in relation to military security." Another group called the Independent Working Group on the Future of the United Nations, funded by the Ford Foundation, says "It is reasonable that it [the U.N.] should enjoy income from some sort of levy on the utilization of the global commons." Yet another organization pushing for global governance is the Independent Commission on Population and Quality of Life, whose membership includes Eleanor Holmes Norton, the Congressional Representative from the District of Columbia. The major public support for global governance is coming from the United Nations Association. This group scheduled dozens of local events in celebration of the U.N.'s 50th anniversary in October, has stepped up its television ads depicting the U.N. as the savior of the planet, and through its prestigious membership and supporter list, is actively campaigning to strengthen the United Nations into a network for global governance.

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(168 February, 1996)

Toward Global Governance: A flawed idea By Henry Lamb Global governance can, at best, only slow the progress of human achievement. At the end of the day, human ingenuity will inevitably prevail. The long road of human history, though filled with fits and turns and tragic mistakes, points toward a time when all men shall truly be free and live in harmony with each other and with the world that sustains them. The road to global governance is a detour, replete with dangers already endured by those whose suffering should guide our journey to the future. Human beings, like all other creatures, must be free to choose their own destiny. When they are not; they wither and die. Freedom is not free; the cost is constant vigilance. Nature is designed to progress on the strengths of all species, not on the weaknesses. The strength of the human species is intelligence, freely applied to the problems it confronts. Governments are created by individuals and have no power or authority beyond the consent of their creators. Governments, however, once created, inevitably assume a life of their own, with all the good and bad qualities possessed by the individuals that constitute the government. Governments, like individuals, may be ambitious, incompetent, devious, or benevolent. Governments, like individuals, find ways to counter, or balance, the initiatives of each other. The process may be chaotic, bloody, and painful, as it is in all of nature. But eventually, balance is achieved, progress is made, and society advances. Should a government arise, for which there is no counter, no balance, individuals become nothing more than subjects dependent upon the whims of the government. Man's long road out of the jungle is dotted with the ashes of other governments, first built on the consent of the governed, then defiled by its own ambition, and eventually collapsed by the weight of its own incompetence. The current rush to create global governance is simply the reemergence of the ageless quest for power. Every government that has ever failed has increased its power beyond the consent of the governed by promising protection from a real or manufactured threat to the individuals governed. In truth, governments provide nothing. Government is simply a mechanism through which individuals perform. Governments cannot have ideas; individuals do. Governments have no wealth, unless taken from individuals. Governments sail no ships, launch no missiles, fire no weapons, provide no protection - it is, in the end, individual human beings exercising their intelligence and energy in the face of a problem or in pursuit of an objective. That fact underlies the failure of every failed government. When government amasses the power to sufficiently suppress the freedom of the individuals governed, individuals arise and cast off that government. It may take years, even centuries, but it will occur, as history will attest. America has succeeded as long as it has only because its founders realized that success and achievement were the work of individuals, and crafted a government to promote individual achievement and severely limit the power of government. As the American government grows in power over the individual, it grows dangerously closer to the point of reconstruction as was

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demonstrated by the result of the 1994 election. Global governance, as presently being developed by the United Nations organizations, makes no pretense of recognizing individual freedom or even the need for consent by the governed. While publicly spouting phrases such as "public/private partnerships" privately, binding treaties and punitive taxes are being imposed. Without apology, the concept of individual achievement is criticized in the World Core Curriculum and the redistribution of wealth is advocated to achieve what is called "equity." Nature knows no equity. Individuals, whether human or not, earn what they get, defend what they earn, and have no right to expect anything else. A global government that promises "equity" to gain the consent of the governed is no different from the government that promised the utopia of communism. No government has the power to ignore the laws of nature - and survive. If the United Nations is to contribute to the progress of human societies, its function must be limited to nothing more than a forum where individual sovereign nations may gather to discuss, debate, and work out their differences. Anything more is an invitation to disaster on a global scale. Unfortunately, much, much more has already occurred. The UN began with 1500 employees. Now more than 52,000 employees fill hundreds of bureaucratic organizations, sucking up billions of dollars earned by hard-working individuals, imposing programs that inhibit, rather than encourage individual freedom. Global governance must be avoided. The United States is the only power in the world that can prevent the move toward global governance, but alas, the current administration is aiding and abetting the movement. Individuals who value freedom must recognize that freedom is at risk and use the power of persuasion among friends, and the power of the ballot box among enemies, to sustain the freedom that has allowed America to prosper. The detour to global governance can still be averted, but the time is short. Once America has relinquished its sovereignty to global governance, the direction of the journey cannot be changed at the ballot box, nor can a single nation withdraw from global dominance. A century of suffering will be required to once again confirm that government cannot manage individuals; that individuals must manage their governments.

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(169 March, 1996)

The year of decision By Henry Lamb In 1776, a handful of individuals, who saw themselves to be nothing more than concerned patriots, made decisions that shaped the destiny of America and the world. The decisions made between now and November 1996 will be no less fateful. In fact, the election of 1996 in America may well be the watershed which determines whether the future flows toward a world of expanding individual freedom, or a world where people's lives are managed by a global government. The paramount issue facing America - which will be determined in the next election - has not yet hit the political radar screen. Pundits discuss the relative chances of the various Republican nominees, Whitewater, Bosnia, Medicare and Medicaid, the Republican revolution, and a host of other issues that pale to insignificance compared to the drama unfolding beyond our borders. While Americans prepare for a barrage of bumper stickers and negative campaign ads, powerful people positioned around the world are planning to plunder America and reduce its power and prestige to achieve what is called global "justice and equity." The United Nations has funded a three-year, so-called independent Commission on Global Governance to recommend to the international community how best to achieve global governance. The Commission's report was released late in 1995. The recommendations leave no doubt; the published plan calls for a World Conference on Global Governance in 1998 to adopt the official treaties and agreements which will install global governance by the year 2000. What is critical about the 1996 election? The current Administration has appointed individuals throughout the Executive Branch, including the State Department, who are actively promoting the agenda of global governance. Unless there is a sweeping change in the Administration in the 1996 election, American delegates to the United Nations will continue to aid and abet the wholesale decimation of American sovereignty by subjugating America to the authority of a restructured, omnipotent United Nations system. The 1996 campaign must focus on essentially the same issues that confronted the patriots in 1776: freedom, sovereignty, and the inalienable right to pursue life, liberty, and property through individual achievement and personal responsibility. These are the core values on which America was built. These are the very values that the Commission on Global Governance intends to replace with its set of core values which is founded on "equity" insured by the "rule of enforceable law." Justice, according to the Commission, can occur only when society is economically equalized, and equalization can occur only when society is managed by a system of global governance dedicated to a common objective. Americans want no part of such a society. Americans sacrificed, fought and died to defend freedom from the military imposition of a managed society. The great danger confronting Americans is that they do not yet know that the enemy has changed uniforms, and tactics. The

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threat is no longer the red star and sickle painted on planes and missiles; now the threat comes from hoards of NGOs (non-government organizations) cheering the proposals pushed by international statesmen at World Conferences designed to incrementally achieve with verbosity what could not be accomplished with bombs. The 1996 campaign must go well beyond the usual rhetoric; it must go well beyond politics -- to the very core of America. What has been called "the Republican revolution" must become the new American revolution -- a revolt against the unrelenting campaign to enslave the world in a system of global governance. America is the only power on earth strong enough to stop the global governance movement. It can do so only by standing firm in the United Nations and demanding that the UN dismantle its sprawling bureaucracies and retreat from its objectives of global governance. Those people now speaking for America at the UN -- all appointed by the current Administration -- are not defending American values. They are, in fact, assisting the United Nations system in its quest for global governance. Neither Washington nor the main-stream media will tell America that the sovereignty of our nation is at risk. As in 1776, it must be the people who rise up and tell Washington which direction to choose. And it must be done in the 1996 election. People must be elected to Congress who share America's core values, not those who promote global governance in the new world order. Above all, since it is the President who appoints our delegates to the UN, we must elect a President and Vice-President who share America's core values, not those values published by Al Gore in his book, Earth in the Balance. It is American sovereignty that provides individual freedom. Even though the federal government has infringed upon those freedoms, if we are a sovereign nation, we can correct our federal government. If, however, we relinquish our sovereignty to a global power, we have no hope of freedom beyond that granted by those who seek to manage human behavior.

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(170 March, 1996)

The year of decision: It's time to stop By Henry Lamb Shortly after the creation of the United Nations, signs began to appear along American roads that said "Get US out of the UN." Proponents of withdrawal from the UN have been painted by the media as right-wing extremists who fail to see the inevitability of globalization. Every administration since Roosevelt has declared that participation in the United Nations would never lead to world government. Indeed, the UN was designed to ensure that world government could never occur. Each of the five major powers were given veto power in the UN Security Council, the UN's supreme authority. Any of the five veto nations could block any proposed UN action. The veto was used frequently during the cold war. But since the collapse of the Berlin Wall, it has been used only once by Russia on a relatively insignificant issue. As further defense against world government, the UN architects made the UN dependent upon its members for funding. The UN operates on the money provided by member nations. America has frequently withheld its payments to the UN in order to nudge the institution in directions more closely aligned with American values. With these safeguards in place, both Washington and the media ignored the claims of those who warned of the danger of an ultimate UN take over. Over the years, various conspiracy theories have been advanced and quickly discounted. UN foes have systematically been branded as paranoid alarmists. Their warnings have now been vindicated. During the cold war, globalists worked in silence. The two major powers dominated the world scene, and regardless of what the globalists might want, they knew full well their agenda was secondary to the wishes and power of the two predominant global forces. When the Soviet Union collapsed, however, a vacuum was created. The globalists saw an opportunity to bring their agenda out of the closet. Throughout the 1980s, they had been working to develop a common enemy -- environmental degradation -- which they believed would unite both the United States and Russia in a common defense under global management. When the Berlin wall fell, so did the need to unite the two opposing forces. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) had already been in the works for years. It provided the ideal occasion to roll out the global agenda for inspection by the world community. The world community cheered and adopted several treaties and documents that set the world's course toward global governance. At the same time, emboldened by the world's acceptance of the UNCED documents, a new Commission on Global Governance was created. The Commission worked for three years, constructing the plan to make global governance a reality. That plan has now been published by Oxford University Press, and entitled Our Global Neighborhood: The Report of the Commission on Global Governance (ISBN 0-19-827998-3, $14.95 410pp)." The report confirms all the worst fears of those who have warned about the UN's take-over of the world. The Commission would strip the veto power from the five permanent members. It would adopt a

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system of global taxation to insure adequate funding for UN programs and enforcement of international law. It would create a standing army. And it would declare the atmosphere, outer space, the oceans, and biodiversity to be -- Global Commons -- under the authority of the UN Trusteeship Council, and administered by a new Economic Security Council. It would consolidate all international monetary systems, all international trade, and all international development under the authority of the new Economic Security Council and require multinational corporations to secure an international license and pay royalties to the UN. It is time to stop the UN and its mad dash to global governance. And at this late date, there is only one way to do it: withdraw. Congressman Joe Scarborough (R-FL) has introduced a bill (HR2535) to do just that. His bill calls for an orderly withdrawal over four years, reducing America's financial support by 25 percent each year. His bill would require that the UN find a new home, and that America's involvement in UN peacekeeping missions be reduced each year and eventually eliminated. It is drastic action. Such a plan will draw screams and howls from the media and from the liberal left. The current Administration, especially Vice-President Al Gore, will ridicule the bill and those who support it. But the alternative is inevitable global governance. Withdrawal from the UN does not mean, necessarily, withdrawal from the world community -- nor should it. It could mean the emergence of American values around the world. It could mean freedom for people whose only hope now is a chance to come to America. It could, and should, mean a new era of freedom and prosperity for all people everywhere.

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(171 March, 1996)

The year of decision: America's role beyond the UN By Henry Lamb The emergence of America launched an astronomical rise in the quality of life for human beings around the world. Life expectancy, even in the least developed nations, has been increased by technologies developed in America. People everywhere clamor to get to America in hopes of having a piece of the American pie. The United Nations' proposals to impose global governance would slice the American pie into tiny pieces and give it to the people who cannot get to America. The process, inevitably, would diminish the American pie to the point that Americans, as well as the rest of the world, would starve. America first, must stop the United Nations' plan to impose global governance. Then, it should reach out to the world and share the recipe so every nation can make its own pie of prosperity. For America to fulfill its role in the world beyond the United Nations, the American people must elect officials who understand that it was not the federal government that made America great; America was made great by individual human beings who possessed the freedom to pursue life, liberty, and property. America's greatest gift to the world is not our wealth or our technology, but the discovery of the unlimited potential of the human spirit when it is freed from the encumbrances of omnipotent governance. When people control governments, there is no problem they cannot solve; when governments control people, the solutions become insoluble problems.

What is called the "Republican revolution" is the rediscovery of American values that go far beyond politics. It is an American revolution - joined by members of every political stripe -who realize that the federal government must be reminded that it is the servant of the people, not their master. The revolution was only launched in 1994; more ground must be gained in 1996. Enough ground must be gained, particularly that ground centered at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, to insist that the United Nations abandon its quest for global governance, and then begin to export America's most valuable commodity -- individual freedom. At Global Conferences, American representatives should not be insisting that America submit to treaties such as the Convention on Biological Diversity - as did Vice-President Al Gore. American Representatives should be insisting that any international agreement protect national sovereignty and insure individual freedom and the right to pursue life, liberty, and property. Presidential appointees should not be inviting United Nations officials to intervene in the business activities of American companies - as did Fish and Wildlife Secretary, George Frampton. Presidential appointees should defend national sovereignty from the intrusions of any foreign power. The American people must first reclaim power and control over its own federal government, and then freely share with the world the recipe for prosperity. Arguments to the contrary will abound. Many people in America, and in the international community, do not see America to be a beacon of freedom, hope, and prosperity. They point to the inner-city ghettos, and blatant crime in the streets, and corporate irresponsibility as the

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product of American freedom. Their argument claims that these outcomes are the inevitable result of individual freedom where only a few achieve prosperity at the expense of the masses who are left to suffer. Their solution is "equity" enforced through international law. Freedom includes the freedom to err. Freedom cannot be exercised without the freedom to make mistakes. Progress can occur only when mistakes are made. Indeed, success is defined by failure. What works cannot be known, until what does not work has been eliminated. Prosperity comes at a price. And that price is the mistakes that are made en route. When people are free to make mistakes, people learn from their mistakes quickly, and correct them. Governments, however, with their usurped omnipotence, make no mistakes. In its own eyes, whatever government does is law, and therefore right. People, individually, cannot correct the mistakes of government. Consequently, un-admitted mistakes multiply and accumulate until either the government itself or the people can no longer stand the weight of collective incompetence, and inevitably, the government collapses. People then, must begin anew to fend for themselves, using their own energy and ingenuity, to produce the security they might have had in the beginning had not government presumed to provide it for them. America must ever stand as a beacon of individual freedom, limited government directly accountable to the electors, compassion, and a willingness to share with all who would not attempt to constrain life, liberty, and the pursuit of property.

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(172 March, 1996)

The year of decision: A strategy for freedom By Henry Lamb A serious call to withdraw from the United Nations is sure to bring a howl from the President, Vice-President, Green Advocacy Groups (GAGs), the Socialist Party, and from the liberal elements of American society. There can be no better way to focus the debate in 1996 on the critical issues that emanate from the proposals to impose global governance through the United Nations system. Of course, it would be better not to withdraw from the United Nations, if the United Nations were not hell-bent on becoming the governor of the world. But now that the plan is published, now that the highest officers of the United Nations system have announced their intention to establish global governance -- there is no alternative. America must stop this lunacy. By advancing Congressman Joe Scarborough's bill, the "United Nations Withdrawal Act of 1995," (HR2535), to the front pages of every newspaper and to the floor of Congress, the 1996 campaign will rise above the usual rhetoric and force our candidates to declare themselves on the side of sovereignty and individual freedom, or on the side of global governance. America can play a vital role in the emerging global community without acquiescing to the global governance aspirations of the international elite. It is America's responsibility to help the world avoid the global catastrophe that will inevitably follow any attempt to manage global societies. It is incredible that such a scheme would even emerge in the aftermath of the colossal failure of the communist experiment in Russia and Cuba. The international elite, however, are convinced that they now have the formula and can do globally, what no nation has been able to do within its own borders: provide cradle-to-the-grave "security of the people." Every person should first, read the Commission on Global Governance report, "Our Global Neighborhood," or an analysis of the report (_co·logic, January/February, 1996), to satisfy himself that the UN is indeed, attempting to impose global governance under the "rule of enforceable [international] law." Then ask a Congressman for a copy of HR2535, to be personally assured that the proposed withdrawal is reasonable. Then persuade every person in every neighborhood and every organization to do the same thing. Ask every candidate for every office for a position on HR2535. Develop and adopt resolutions at Rotary, Kiwanis, Chamber of Commerce, and other civic organizations expressing support for HR2535. Call radio talk shows, and write letters to the editor, again, and again, and again. America is the only power on earth strong enough to stop the UN march to global governance, but the only power on earth strong enough to direct the American government, is the people who created the government in the first place. This Presidential election may be the last election in which the people of America still have the power to control their own destiny. If the UN is successful in its plan to convene a World Conference on Global Governance in 1998, and implement global governance by the year 2000, the next Presidential election won't matter at all. The President and America, and all its people, will be under the "rule of enforceable [international] law."

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This strategy will bring to a screeching halt the relentless intrusion on property rights by the federal government now trying to implement the provisions of the Convention on Biological Diversity with its "Ecosystem Management Policy." It will stop the outpouring of tax dollars to the population control programs sponsored by the United Nations. It will redirect the discussion of the Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Climate Change, and perhaps prevent a 60 percent reduction of energy use in America. It will stop further negotiations on the Desertification Treaty which could give international control to American farm lands. It will block the give-away of American technology now being negotiated by American observers to the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity. It will stop the expansion of UNESCO's Biosphere Reserve Program, now threatening southern Appalachia and the Missouri Ozarks. It will keep UNESCO's World Heritage Committee out of domestic business affairs. It will prevent the UN's Robert Muller World Core Curriculum from invading our schools in the form of "Outcome Based Education." It will block the transfer of parental rights to the international community as is proposed in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It will keep outer space free for those who can get there. It will keep the airwaves free from globally controlled government propaganda. It will keep the airways and oceans free for those who need them. It will keep the land -- American land -- out of the control of a handful of international elite, unelected bureaucrats. It will keep America, and its people, out of the control of a handful of international elite, unelected bureaucrats, who think they know best how we should live our lives.

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(173 April, 1996)

Redefining American Values By Henry Lamb For more than a generation, traditional American values have been undergoing a planned process of redefinition. The process is nearing completion and many Americans have not yet realized what has occurred. To the Americans who carved this nation out of wilderness, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were the supreme values to be protected at any cost. In a generation, these words have come to describe new values which differ markedly from those for which our ancestors fought and died. Life, the first and highest value set forth in our Declaration of Independence, describes human life. The ordinary people who created an extraordinary nation made no apology for their belief that human life is the crowning achievement of a supreme creator. They celebrated the belief that human life reflected the image of the creator and that all other life forms are a gift to be used to sustain and benefit human life. This belief in the value of life is described in scientific terms as anthropocentrism, or "man-centered." In a generation, anthropocentrism has been denounced as the cause of most of the world's problems, and life, as a value, has been redefined. The new definition of life, the first and highest value to be protected, is all life forms, of which human life is but one strand with no more value than any other life form. This belief is described as biocentrism, or "nature-centered." It is this biocentric belief that now describes the value of life as policies are adopted which purport to protect "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This redefinition of the value of life has profound impact upon the place and role of all human beings on this planet. The biocentric value of life bestows upon every tree, cockroach, and rattlesnake, the same right to life that a human enjoys. In the biocentric view, the use of a tree or the squashing of a cockroach by a human is equal to the murder of another human, since all life forms are of equal value. It is this belief that compels Earth First! members to chain themselves to trees and destroy logging equipment in an effort to prevent humans from committing murder. It is this belief that compels Greenpeace members to destroy whaling vessels. It is this belief, described as "the new earth ethic," that underlies regulatory policies which prevent humans from using natural resources that are seen to be other life forms with as much right to live as humans. The value of life has been redefined. The only way to protect life, as it has been redefined, is to constrain the liberty of human beings. In their pursuit of happiness, humans cannot be allowed to continue to murder defenseless trees and animals. Therefore, those who hold the biocentric value of life have developed a maze of regulatory constraints which are redefining the traditional American value of liberty into a new pattern of human behavior controlled, not by the individual, but by a central legal authority. Liberty, as used in the Declaration of Independence, meant individual liberty. It meant freedom for every individual to do whatever he or she chose to do in pursuit of individual happiness.

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Liberty was constrained only by the common law which provides recourse for the infringement on one's freedom by another. It was this meaning of individual freedom that made America flourish. It was the recourse provided by common law that enforced the personal responsibility which accompanies individual freedom. Individual liberty, tempered by personal responsibility, produces excellent achievement. Freedom for every individual - to try, to fail, to try again, to compete, to outsmart, to succeed - is the driving force which propelled America and the world to the fantastic accomplishments achieved in the last century. Liberty, as redefined by the new "earth ethic," means freedom for the individual to do whatever is allowed by the central authority. Individual achievement is discouraged in favor of teamwork to promote the common good. Individuals working together toward an objective prescribed by the central authority, eliminates competition and reduces personal responsibility. The new "earth ethic" promises security for the people who exercise their liberty within the behavior that is deemed acceptable, or "sustainable" by the biocentric central authority. Behavior which is deemed not to be "sustainable," is ridiculed, discouraged, and penalized. Individuals who cling to the old definition of liberty are now castigated as greedy, anti-environmental polluters who seek only to enrich themselves at the expense of society.

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(174 April, 1996)

Redefining American Values: The Pursuit of Happiness By Henry Lamb Happiness in America has always centered around owning a piece of land, a home, having a family, and an adequate income earned doing something that is enjoyable. America was created to guarantee its citizens the right to pursue happiness - any way they chose. The creators of America recognized that in order to pursue happiness, citizens must have the right to life, liberty, and property. The Constitution which created America, guarantees these rights. These fundamental values are now being redefined by the new "earth ethic." The right to own property, the foundation of all American freedoms, is being eroded. The new earth ethic holds that biodiversity, that is, all life forms, must be protected from the onslaught of human beings. Since biodiversity lives on land, the use of land must be controlled. The control of land use by a central authority negates the purpose of private ownership. The right to own property, as guaranteed by the Constitution, has been eroded by an explosion of land-use laws and regulations which effectively destroy the traditional American value of the right to pursue happiness - as one chooses. Moreover, the keepers of the new earth ethic are not content to rely on regulations. It is their goal to remove land from individual ownership by placing it under the ownership and control of government where possible, or other organizations such as The Nature Conservancy. Already, governments own 40 percent of the land in America. A significant additional amount is owned by more than 700 land conservancy organizations. Every year, billions of dollars are appropriated for land acquisitions at every level of government, and billions more are funneled to land conservancy organizations. The long range plan, now published in the Wildlands Project, the Sierra Club magazine, the UN's Global Biodiversity Assessment, and elsewhere, is to eventually get all land out of the hands of private owners and redefine the concept of property rights to mean ownership of an apartment or condo in a planned "sustainable" community. The pursuit of happiness, as envisioned in the new earth ethic, is a vastly different vision from those entertained by the creators of America. The new vision is not fully formed. It has been developing in the literature for more than a generation. There is now enough published information, however, to begin to construct an accurate picture of how humans can expect to pursue happiness in the next century. The new earth ethic requires a central, biocentric authority, under the auspices of the United Nations. The function of national governments is seen to be the enforcement of international agreements within their boundaries. State and local governments are expected to be consumed by Bioregional Councils, dominated by "civil society" representatives. "Civil society" is defined to be NGOs (non-government organizations) accredited by the United Nations. Bioregional Councils will have direct access to the United Nations through a "Petitions Council," a new UN body, that will function under the authority of a restructured UN Trusteeship Council, consisting of "civil society" appointees, who are charged with the trusteeship of the "global commons." Under the new system of governance, now being developed by the United Nations, individuals

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will be "managed" in order to protect biodiversity. Human populations are to be gradually moved to what Science magazine describes as "islands of human habitat surrounded by wilderness." These islands of human habitat are expected to be isolated communities that are essentially self-sufficient, using only approved non-chemical, non-motorized agricultural techniques on land that is designated as "buffer zones" surrounding core wilderness. Such communities would have little need for the energy-intensive industrial complex that pollutes the air and consumes natural resources, nor would there be a need for the gigantic transportation system to move consumer products to market. True happiness, under the new earth ethic, begins with an awareness of oneness with the earth. The new definition of the value of pursuing happiness is being imposed throughout the land every moment of every day. Thousands of NGOs are working to implement measures to restrict land use, at every level of government. Other NGOs are working to destroy industry in America by imposing bans on man-made chemicals such as chlorine. Other NGOs are working to rewrite the curricula for public education. Other NGOs are focusing on American churches in an organized campaign that already reaches 53,000 congregations on a regular basis. Sadly, our federal government is leading the charge to redefine American values.

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(175 April, 1996)

Redefining American Values: Government Complicity By Henry Lamb Even before Al Gore became Vice President, he led a Congressional majority, supported by the popular environmental movement, to enact laws which redefine traditional American values. As Vice President, he has been able to speed up the process by placing many of the very people who designed the new "earth ethic" in key policy positions. Virtually all the federal agencies which have regulatory responsibility over natural resources are now headed by individuals whose biocentric belief system has been well established. Representatives to the United Nations have also passed the biocentric litmus test, and are now advancing proposals to achieve "global governance" at the expense of American sovereignty. Al Gore is the green guru in the federal government most responsible for the government's complicity in redefining American values. The Republican revolution of 1994 caused Gore and his green army to regroup and plan a new strategy. Rather than engage the debate raised by the Republican majority, Gore is leading the Democratic minority in a strategy of deception and demagoguery aimed at the destruction of all who oppose their vision of a biocentric world - including the Republican party. The House passed amendments to the Clean Water Act which included important protection for private property owners. Gore and his minions immediately branded the bill as the Republican's "Dirty Water Act" and held press conferences claiming that the bill would force tax payers to pay polluters for simply obeying the law. Congressmen Don Young and Richard Pombo introduced reforms to the Endangered Species Act which many people believe would be more effective in protecting endangered species. Gore and his minions immediately sent up a chorus that the bill would "roll back 25 years of environmental progress." Senator Bob Dole introduced the Omnibus Property Rights Act to enforce the Constitutional protection of property rights. Gore and his minions launched a national media campaign claiming that the bill would create a new entitlement program for polluters. Their strategy is working. The Republican revolution began with a Contract with America which promised to restore traditional American values to domestic policy. Gore and his minions have successfully distorted the effort into the perception that Republicans have issued a Contract on America which will destroy the environment, enrich the greedy, impoverish the middle class, and starve the poor and the elderly. Gore and his minions have been able to shift the debate away from the real issues, confident that a constant stream of propaganda against the awful, anti-environmental, anti-poor, anti-elderly Republicans will result in a Democratic majority in Congress and a return of the Clinton-Gore White House. The on-going, highly visible budget battle is not about the issues at conflict within the budget bill; the battle being waged by the White House is about public perception of the warriors. Neither Clinton, nor his spokesmen, ever discuss the merits of a position held; they simply claim to be protectors of health care for the poor, education, and the environment, while at the same time, denouncing Republicans as heartless destroyers of health care, education and the

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environment. Implicit in the White House position is the same belief system that is embraced in the new earth ethic. That belief system holds that government should provide "security" for the people, and that government should "educate" the people, and that government should "manage" natural resources. Congress, under the control of Democrats for the last 40 years, has imposed that belief system so thoroughly that many Americans have forgotten, or have never known, the traditional American values of individual freedom and personal responsibility. The best way to destroy individual initiative and achievement is to remove the need for it. In its effort to provide "security" for the people, government inadvertently removed the need for individuals to exercise their own initiative to achieve personal security. The greater the dependence individuals have upon government, the more manageable society becomes. It is the goal of Al Gore and his minions to manage society. It is the stated objective of the new earth ethic to transform societies into a "global neighborhood" managed under the watchful eye of "civil society" enforced by international law. The federal government, under the leadership of the recent Democratic majority and the current Administration, is aiding and abetting the transition from individual freedom and personal responsibility to a managed society of individuals who accept government control in exchange for government hand-outs. America was created to insure that its citizens were free to pursue opportunity. America now limits, and increasingly controls, its citizens' ability to pursue opportunity. There can be only one, inevitable, eventual result of the new earth ethic being imposed with government complicity: human disaster.

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(176 April, 1996)

Redefining American Values: The 21st Century By Henry Lamb Florida is the state chosen by the Wildlands Project to illustrate what America should look like in the 21st century. The illustration appeared in the Fall, 1995 Patagonia catalog, along with an introduction by Dave Foreman. Three maps show the state as it now is, as it will be in 10 years, and how it will look in 100 years. The first map identifies about 10 percent of the state as "protected areas" and the balance as privately owned property. The protected areas include the Everglades, which is a UN Biosphere Reserve and a UNESCO World Heritage Site "in danger." A small area around Ocala, some of the panhandle, and a few scattered spots in central Florida are also shown as protected areas. The second map, Florida as it will be in 10 years, shows greatly expanded protected areas, including "Corridors linking panthers from the Everglades to Georgia and Alabama." Much of the upper west coast pinelands, the small towns around Lake Okeechobee, Palatka, Deland, and other towns in northeast Florida will be inside the protected areas. Nearly half the state will be converted to core wilderness or buffer zones in ten years, according to the Wildlands Project plan. The final map "shows what we need to do to ensure the biological health of the state." Approximately 90 percent of the state is protected in wilderness and buffer zones and the remaining 10 percent is left for clusters of human population around Miami, Fort Meyers to St. Petersburg, Orlando, Jacksonville, and Pensacola. How can a not-for-profit organization, headed by a convicted eco-terrorist, publish such a blatantly ambitious plan in a prestigious national publication? Dave Foreman has every reason to be confident. Florida is ahead of most states in their effort to destroy the concept of private property rights. Since its 1972 Comprehensive Land Use Planning Act, Florida has continually tightened its control of private property. Florida law even allows local governments, and the state, to widen road right-of-ways by mowing or maintaining private property adjacent to roads for four years, and then legally "take" the property without even notifying the land owner. Florida's legislature and state house have been dominated by biocentric green leadership for years. Moreover, the Everglades have been under the Biosphere Reserve Program of the UN for many years. Until now, however, the land-use control measures imposed on Florida's people were presented simply as necessary steps to protect the environment. Only in recent months has the full plan been revealed. The plan to convert America to wilderness may begin in Florida, but it is being implemented across the nation with the full support of the current Administration. Carol Browner, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, is the former Environmental Protection Chief for the state of Florida. The Secretary of Interior, Bruce Babbitt, and the head of the Fish and Wildlife Service, George Frampton, both formerly headed environmental organizations that helped to design the wilderness plan. The United Nations has also formally embraced the Wildlands Project as the method to be used

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to implement Article 8 of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Recently published plans to restructure the United Nations would put all lands, both public and private, under the authority of the UN Trusteeship Council to be administered through a system of Bioregional Councils consisting of appointees from accredited environmental organizations. What happens to the people? They are relocated to islands of human habitat surrounded by wilderness. They are expected to use most of their time growing, or hunting their food using only the methods approved and permitted by the Bioregional Councils. The proponents of the Wildlands Project have determined that the human race will be better off communing with nature than present life styles provide. They have also determined that the population must be reduced by at least 50 percent, and some advocate a reduction of 80 percent. To bring that about, proposals have been made to require a government license to bear children. The 21st century will be a new world if world governance plans are implemented. Air conditioning will be a thing of the past. The CFC ban, effective December 31, 1995, is a major step in that direction. Automobiles will slowly give way to bicycles and non-motorized vehicles. Electricity generated by fossil and nuclear fuels will become so expensive as to be unavailable to most homes. Vacations will become short jaunts to wilderness areas to commune with nature in what is called "eco-tourism" expeditions. Schools will teach selfless deference for the benefit of the community. Churches will proclaim gaia as the source of life and the object of worship. The plan is laid. The plan is published in a variety of UN and federal documents, and the plan is being implemented every hour of every day by environmental organizations and by their puppets in the federal government. Only aware, alert, courageous people can prevent it.

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(177 May, 1996)

Governance by non-elected officials By Henry Lamb Government by the people, for the people, and of the people, is given meaning when the ultimate power of the people is expressed through the ballot box. Without the ability to "throw the bums out," at the ballot box, those who govern have no accountability, and less responsibility to those who are governed. In America, the ballot box has been the great defender of liberty and the instrument through which the will of the people has been haltingly advanced. Now, the ballot box is in great peril. A new system of governance is emerging. The new system pays lip-service to the ballot box, but is replete in ways to by-pass its authority. This new system of governance is being promoted by the United Nations. It is a system of governance by non-government organizations. Non-government organizations that have been approved, or accredited by the United Nations, are now being called "Civil Society Organizations." Those organizations which have not been accredited are called "populist activist groups." In the March/April edition of World Watch, Senior Researcher, Michael Renner makes the case for governance by "Civil Society Organizations." He says that there is "growing evidence that the global market poses a threat to both cultural and biological diversity, and the need for defenders of diversity to be in on global governance." He also says that national governments are declining in authority the world over. He says "...it may be time for CSOs to move to the fore." CSOs or NGOs are moving to the fore, at both the international and national level. As Renner points out in his editorial, NGOs have played an increasingly influential role in international conferences since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio. They are also gaining influence in domestic policy issues. And there is a new role developing that will give them even more power. The function of NGOs is discussed in great detail in the Global Biodiversity Assessment, the 1100-page document recently released by the United Nations Environment Program, funded by the Global Environment Facility. NGOs are to be elevated in legal status, and be empowered to sue in behalf of biodiversity. They are to be empowered to receive funds directly from UN sources, and to manage and administer UN programs. These new proposed powers for NGOs take on added significance in view of the recommendations of the Commission on Global Governance report entitled Our Global Neighborhood. This 410-page document calls for the restructuring of the United Nations, and for the creation, within the UN system, of a new "Assembly of the People" which is to be chosen from 300 to 600 "accredited" NGOs. The UN Trusteeship Council is to be restructured and consist of no more than 23 representatives from "accredited" NGOs, who will be given "trusteeship" of the global commons. The global commons is defined to be "the atmosphere, outer space, the oceans, and the related environment and life-support systems that contribute to the support of human life." There will also be a new "Petitions Council," consisting of five to seven representatives from "accredited" NGOs whose job will be to screen petitions from NGOs

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in nation states and recommend appropriate UN response. NGOs are moving to the fore. The granddaddy of all NGOs, the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) is primarily responsible for the UN-NGO policy. It was organized in 1948 by the same people who organized UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization). It created the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) in 1961, which then created the WRI (World Resources Institute) in 1982. These three NGOs now guide more than 29,000 international NGOs, and many more thousand national NGOs in the implementation of policies which they have themselves developed. For example, it was the IUCN who first proposed the Convention on Biological Diversity in 1981. More than 7,000 NGOs assembled in Rio to lobby the delegates to the Earth Summit to adopt the treaty. The NGOs were coordinated by the IUCN and the WRI. It was the IUCN who first proposed and lobbied for the UN resolution which provides "accreditation" for NGOs. The IUCN has 550 NGOs, 100 government agencies, and 68 sovereign states in its membership. The United States Department of State contributes more than $1 million per year to this NGO. Indeed, NGOs are moving to the fore!

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(178 May, 1996)

NGOs: Organizing for governance By Henry Lamb How, exactly, are NGOs organizing for governance? There are dozens of different techniques employed, all working toward the same objective: control of land and resource use decisions. One of the more popular techniques is the use of natural or cultural "Heritage Areas." A common feature of these "Heritage Areas" is the creation of a "Management Board." This Management Board is supposed to represent the interests of all the "stakeholders" within the Heritage Area. Management Boards are given a wide range of authority. In some instances, authority is limited to simply recommending to local governments what should be done. In other cases, the Management Board has absolute authority over all land use and resource use within the area. Currently, there are at least eight different "Heritage Area" bills in Congress seeking to establish Heritage Areas in South Carolina, Michigan, Georgia, Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania. Typically, the Heritage Area Act will define the geographic area, establish broad objectives of preserving "heritage," and create a Management Board to accomplish the task. Frequently, the legislation will designate a few public officials, a few business leaders, and a bevy of NGO representatives to sit on the Management Board. Quite often, the Heritage Area Act is the result of lobbying by a group of NGOs who then get named to the Management Board. In almost every instance, the NGOs dominate the board, if not in number, then in preparation and expertise. NGO representatives to these management boards are frequently full-time employees of an NGO created by a larger NGO expressly for that purpose. The Tides Foundation, which receives funding from the Department of Interior and other federal sources, has an elaborate program called the "Incubator Program" which creates and funds small two- or three-person NGOs for the express purpose of achieving a local objective such as the creation of a Heritage Area. This same technique is used by the Man and the Biosphere Program of the State Department. The program is a product of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), and now operates 47 Biosphere Reserves in the United States. The oldest Biosphere Reserve is the Southern Appalachian Man and the Biosphere Program (SAMAB), which began in the Great Smoky Mountains. The SAMAB area now extends from near Birmingham, Alabama to near Richmond, Virginia. The SAMAB "Management Board" was created by mutual agreement among several state and federal agencies. Soon after the Management Board was established, it incorporated as a not-for-profit corporation and became a full-blown NGO in its own right. Its board of directors includes representatives from the National Parks and Conservation Association, Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club, and other NGOs. The Adirondack State Park Commission is perhaps the most extreme example of non-elected governing authority by a management board. This Commission was created by state legislation, appointed by the governor, and has absolute authority over nearly three million acres of private property surrounding the three-million acre Adirondack State Park. In fact, the entire six-million

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acre area is designated as a state park, even though half of it is privately owned. Private land owners may not disturb their own land without approval of the management board. Most often, authority is accumulated by management boards in small increments. The Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) is a widely used mechanism by which management boards grab power. A simple agreement between the management board and a local government may call first, for all zoning changes to be reviewed by the management board to test for compliance with the "Heritage" plan. Then the language of the MOA might be revised to include the words "reviewed and approved." Gradually, these management boards extend their influence and their power as far and wide as possible. The NGOs on these management boards are affiliated with NGOs who work on a broader agenda. Whether the management board is created to serve a local watershed, a heritage area, or a Biosphere Reserve, their activities are coordinated within a much broader agenda leading to the creation of Bioregions and Bioregional Councils. These plans are discussed, and the procedures for implementation are set forth in the Global Biodiversity Assessment, especially in Sections 9 and 10. The Bioregions are to become the basic unit of governance, with representatives from the Bioregional Councils selected to serve on the newly proposed "Assembly of the People" at the United Nations. With the newly proposed "Petitions Council" in place at the UN, management boards will have direct access to the UN enforcement agencies for infractions of land-use plans. Elected officials may still be in place, but their authority over land use and resource use will be irrelevant.

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(179 May, 1996)

NGOs and Bioregions By Henry Lamb The Sierra club has proposed a new map of North America consisting of 21 Bioregions, which, according to the Global Biodiversity Assessment, should become the basic unit of governance. Bioregions are defined by ecosystems, not by political boundaries. The Department of Interior has defined 52 ecosystems in the United States which fit nicely into the 21 Bioregions proposed by the Sierra club. Within each of the Bioregions and ecosystems, there are active NGOs working to implement a variety of land lock-up schemes. The more popular schemes currently include Natural and Cultural Heritage Areas, Biosphere Reserves, Viewsheds, Ecosystem Management Plans, Buffer Zones around existing parks, and Zones of Cooperation around Buffer Zones. The impetus for each of these schemes comes from an NGO or a coalition of NGOs, aided and abetted by the Department of Interior, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in particular, the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Natural Resource Conservation Service, and a host of other federal and state agencies. With few exceptions, NGOs initiate the local action with a willing federal or state agency, sometimes with funding supplied by the agency, and then the NGO promotes the program through local meetings and propaganda, lobbying local, state, and federal officials until the program becomes official. Inevitably, the program will provide for a Management Board on which the NGO is a participant. Once in place, the program then is expanded and coordinated with other programs in the ecosystem and Bioregion. Within a Bioregion there may be dozens of separate, individual programs, each managed by a Management Board dominated by NGOs. The Sierra club, or The Nature Conservancy, for example, may have representatives sitting on several Management Boards within a Bioregion. In other instances, the Tides Foundation may have several of its "Incubator Program" organizations sitting on Management Boards. Local chapters of the National Wildlife Federation and the Wilderness Society are frequently represented on local Management Boards. Through this infusion of local NGO representation, larger NGOs coordinate the agenda of local land-control programs. And because the larger NGOs are affiliated with the international NGOs such as the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature), it is the international agenda that is being imposed at the local level in the United States. The current President of the IUCN is Jay Hair, former President of the National Wildlife Federation. The current co-chair of the U.N. Commission on Global Governance is Shridath Ramphal, former President of the IUCN. Ultimately, the plan as discussed in numerous U.N. documents, envisions the development of a Bioregional Council as the supreme governing authority over the Bioregion. The Bioregional Council is to be chosen from the various Management Boards within the Bioregion. Representatives from the various Bioregional Councils are to be chosen to serve on the U.N. "Assembly of the People," the "Petitions Council," and the U.N. Trusteeship Council.

Moreover, NGOs are to be given direct funding from federal and U.N. sources, and engaged to perform actual management and administrative functions within the Bioregion. This

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practice is already underway in America and throughout the world. The Nature Conservancy has secured millions of dollars from the Department of Interior to perform management and administrative activities on land owned by The Nature Conservancy. In South America, the World Wide Fund for Nature, and its local chapters, are actually managing Bioregions and Biosphere Reserves with money provided by the United Nations. The IUCN is the official scientific reviewer of nominations for World Heritage Sites, paid for by UNESCO. Between 1993 and 1996, the Department of Interior alone, awarded $242 million to 869 NGOs and individuals for projects ultimately designed to destroy private property rights and to bring about the new system of governance by non-elected NGOs governing Bioregions. This new system of governance is not presented to the public as a new system of governance. It is presented as a local program designed to preserve the heritage of an area, or to protect a "fragile" ecosystem, or to save some alleged "endangered" species. Often, local NGO members and local agency officials are totally unaware that the program they are promoting is a part of a much broader agenda. The official guidelines of the World Heritage Treaty instructs promoters to not inform local people because opposition may bias the ultimate decision. Because proponents of this new governance by "civil society organizations" have been so thorough in their planning and implementation, most of America is just now becoming aware of the impact the new system will have on individual freedom and private property rights in America. America is just now beginning to wake up.

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(180 May, 1996)

How can Bioregionalism be stopped? By Henry Lamb Throughout America, local communities are being confronted with initiatives to create a heritage area, a biosphere reserve, a wildlife refuge, a buffer zone, or some other program to reduce private property rights in favor of a management board consisting of interested "stakeholders." Increasingly, local land owners are becoming alarmed and are organizing in an effort to combat the confiscation of their rights. With powerful, well-funded NGOs (non-government organizations) and the federal government pushing for these programs, local citizens are at a disadvantage and are ill-prepared to pose an effective defense. There are a few general principles that local communities are finding to be effective. When such a threat is raised in a community, the first question to be raised is "why?" Why is the proposed program necessary or desirable? The answers will fall into one of two general categories: to protect the environment (biodiversity), or to preserve the heritage. Too often, these answers are simply accepted as valid. They should not be. Proponents of land-use lock-up programs should be forced to produce scientific evidence to prove that current resource use poses a real and certain danger to the environment. Rarely is that evidence available. At best, proponents point to "biodiversity loss" in broad general terms, and point to the "alleged" need to restore ecosystems to "pre-settlement conditions." There is little evidence that "collective management" of land and natural resources improves the environment; there is substantial evidence that such management is actually a detriment to the environment. Local citizens need to familiarize themselves with these arguments and be prepared to produce evidence to refute the alleged need for such a program. The next question to be asked is: "Will this program diminish private property rights?" The answer is likely to be a profuse "no." The fine print in the program, however, will delineate several ways that private property rights will be diminished. Local citizens should challenge each of these potential restrictions on private property rights. Then, local citizens should take the offensive by insisting that any plan must contain, at a minimum, the following principles: (1) Veto power by each and every duly elected body within the proposed plan area. Every city council, county commission, or state legislature must retain the right to veto any provision of any plan. Only by retaining accountability at the local elected level can private citizens hope to resist the abuses of non-elected management boards. (2) No net loss of private property. Any plan that seeks to acquire private property for any government should also require that a like quantity of land already owned by the government be released to private individuals. The government already owns 40 percent of the land area in the United States. Proponents of land lock-up schemes will not be content until the government or its surrogates, such as The Nature Conservancy, own or control all of it. The line must be drawn in every local community.

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(3) No net loss of tax base. A popular scheme to lock-up land is the use of "conservation easements." Tax breaks are offered to the land owner in exchange for a perpetual easement that restricts land use. When this occurs, it forces the tax rate to increase on all other land owners, or reduces the tax base that is available to local governments to provide needed services. (4) No conservation easements beyond the life of the signer. Conservation easements deprive future generations of the opportunity to use land and resources. No land owner can know what conditions will exist two or three generations downstream. To prohibit descendants from using land and resources is incredibly short-sighted, and leaves a legacy to the descendants that implies that they will not have the intelligence to use the resources wisely. Had the conservation easement mentality prevailed a hundred years ago, society would have been locked into a painful agricultural subsistence mode, dependent upon horse-drawn transportation, and pony-express communications. Our generation must not limit the advance of society to the vision of biocentric, environmental extremists who believe "the good old days" were the utopia to which we should return. These four simple principles can stop many of the land-use lock-up schemes now being perpetrated on local communities. Proponents cannot tolerate private property rights, nor the ultimate authority of local elected officials. Rather than adopt a toothless plan, proponents generally withdraw the plan and go back to the drawing board. That doesn't mean that they have given up. In fact, it usually means that they redouble their propaganda efforts and find a new way to achieve the same objectives. Land owners and private citizens who value individual freedom, private property rights, and free enterprise must be ever vigilant and involved. Local land use battles are won by those who show-up, speak-up, and exercise the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States of America.

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(181 June, 1996)

Kindred Spirits: Unabomber and Earth First! By Henry Lamb In the March/February (1994) issue of the Earth First! magazine, an article lambasted Burson-Marsteller, and erroneously reported it to be the public relations firm used by Exxon after the spill. The article also said: "Burson-Marsteller promotes an elite form of `environmentalism" that serves the needs of the corporate world. The main purpose of this shallow environmentalism is to make the public believe that 1) the environmental crisis has been exaggerated by sensationalism and irresponsible activists, and 2) that `responsible' environmentalists work with, and not against, the corporate establishment." In November, 1994, Earth First! held a meeting in Missoula, Montana. Theodore Kaczynski's name is on the attendee list. The next month, a Burson-Mosteller executive, Thomas Mosser, was killed by a mail bomb. In April, 1995, The New York Times published a letter from the Unabomber which said: "we blew up Thomas Mosser last December because he was a Burson-Marsteller executive. Among other misdeeds, Burson-Marsteller help Exxon clean up its public image after the Exxon Valdez incident. But we attacked Burston-Marsteller less for its specific misdeeds than on general principles...its business is the development of techniques for manipulating people's attitudes." Earth First! denies any connection with Kaczynski, and in an open letter to ABC News, insisted that Earth First advocated non-violence. Judge for yourself from this excerpt from an article by Mike Roselle, an Earth First! official, which appeared in the Earth First! Journal just weeks before Thomas Mosser was killed: "We don't care who is in power in Washington, for whoever stands on the walls of Babylon will be a target for our arrows. When we raze the citadel, it will matter not who holds the keys to the corporate washroom.... What we want is nothing short of a revolution. Monkeywrenching is more than just sabotage, and your [sic] goddam right it's revolutionary! This is jihad, pal." Actually, this language is pretty tame for the Earth First! Journal, and downright milque-toast compared to other newsletters in the radical environmental movement. One such newsletter, Live Wild or Die, distributed only by hand, by the Earth First! elite to special recipients, carried a "hit list" of eleven corporations targeted for "direct action." Two of the top three names were hit by the Unabomber. Thomas Mosser, and Gil Murray both died as the result. This from the Wild Rockies Review, (Vol.6, No. 1, p. 9, 1993): "My theory is that if, every time the Forest Service or some other entity commits an act of destruction of the wild...I take my anger and I place it in a certain compartment inside my brain, then when it becomes time to throw bombs I will be able to access those places of anger that I have stored and be a very good bombthrower, perhaps better than the other bombthrowers." This group is reported to be one of several "direct action" groups operating at the behest of Earth First!.

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Despite the denials and protestations of Earth First!, its legacy of monkeywrenching (eco-terrorist activity) and its long trail of published venom, has now been exposed by the spotlight cast on the Unabomber. In his letter to The New York Times, and in his 37,000-word "Manifesto," the Unabomber's values and visions are revealed. They are the same values and visions championed by Earth First! - and many others who claim the moral high-ground, while wallowing in the immoral mud of lies, deceit, destruction and death. The Earth First! gospel was first spoken by Dave Foreman, who founded Earth First! in 1980. His book, Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching, is more than 300 pages of detailed "how-to" commit eco-terrorism. Diagrams and directions for destroying bulldozers, bomb-making, tree-spiking, all the way to billboard burning and computer jamming are provided for his followers. They are still following although Foreman has moved on. As a condition of his suspended sentence for conspiring to blow up power transmission lines, Foreman had to sever his ties with Earth First!. He did, officially. He then created a new batch of organizations to continue his war on people. Now he is using new weapons, new strategies, and new friends. It is still the same Dave Foreman, the same message, the same mission, and the same determination. His message is the much like the message published by the Unabomber: whatever hurts the earth - must die!

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(182 June, 1996)

Kindred Spirits: Unabomber and Dave Foreman By Henry Lamb Dave Foreman created Earth First! because The Wilderness Society, where he was a lobbyist, was "becoming indistinguishable from those we were ostensibly fighting." In his book, Confessions of an Eco-Warrior, Foreman says: "It's time to get angry, to cry, to let rage flow at what the human cancer is doing to earth.... We are warriors. Earth First! is a warrior society. We have a job to do." That "job" is to destroy the industrial-technological society. Foreman says: There is no hope for reform of the industrial empire. Modern society is a driverless hot rod without brakes, going ninety miles an hour down a dead-end street with a brick wall at the end. Bioregionalism is what is on the other side of that wall." The Unabomber says, in paragraphs 111 and 140 of his Manifesto, "Industrial-technological society cannot be reformed. The only way out is to dispense with the industrial technological system altogether. This implies revolution...." Both the Unabomber and Foreman are eco-defenders, monkeywrenchers, revolutionaries in a war to save a planet that is in no danger. The Unabomber uses bombs to intimidate, maim, and kill. Foreman's strategy is more subtle, more sophisticated, more socially acceptable - but far more dangerous. The Unabomber says: "The positive ideal that we propose is Nature. That is, WILD nature: those aspects of the functioning of the Earth and its living things that are independent of human management and free of human interference and control. We would like, ideally, to break down all society into very small, completely autonomous units" (Letter to The New York Times, April, 1995 and paragraph 183 of the Manifesto). Since leaving Earth First!, Foreman has created the Cenozoic Society, Wild Earth, and the Wildlands Project to bring about the very goal described by the Unabomber. The Wildlands Project is a massive plan to convert "at least half of the land area of the 48 conterminous states [to] core reserves and inner corridor zones. Eventually, a wilderness network would dominate...with human habitation being the islands." An independent review of the Wildlands Project, published in the July 25, 1993 edition of Science, described the Wildlands Project as "...nothing less than the transformation of America to an archipelago of human-inhabited islands surrounded by natural areas." Why? The Unabomber explains: "There is good reason to believe that primitive man suffered from less stress and frustration and was better satisfied with his way of life than modern man is." Dave Foreman explains: "We can see that life in a hunter-gatherer society was on the whole healthier, happier, and more secure than our lives today as peasants, industrial workers, or business executives." To achieve the goal, the Unabomber says: "Our immediate goal...is the destruction of the

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worldwide industrial system." Foreman's new publication, Wild Earth, says: "Does all the foregoing mean that Wild Earth and the Wildlands Project advocate the end of industrial civilization? Most assuredly. Everything civilized must go." Are these the maniacal rantings of eco-fanatics? The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has officially identified the Wildlands Project as the model to be followed in the implementation of Article 8 of the Convention on Biological Diversity, as described in their recent publication, Global Biodiversity Assessment. The Sierra Club has embraced the bioregion concept of the Wildlands Project and has published a map which proposes the conversion of North America into 21 bioregions. (Dave Foreman is a member of the Board of Directors of the Sierra Club.) The Department of Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency have adopted an "Ecosystem Management Policy" which is actively implementing the provisions of the Wildlands Project. Eco-fanatics are busy, worldwide, implementing the goals set forth by the Unabomber and Dave Foreman. While the land is being converted to wilderness, the war on the industrial-technological society is gaining momentum. The two indispensable ingredients of an industrial society, energy and chemicals, are under siege. And the mechanism for enforcement is under construction.

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(183 June, 1996)

Kindred Spirits: Unabomber and Al Gore By Henry Lamb When Al Gore published Earth in the Balance in 1992, he probably had no idea that his impassioned plea to "reorganize society" to save the environment was exactly what the Unabomber was trying to do. When Gore advocated using any and "all means" to achieve his reorganized society, he probably didn't mean using bombs to kill people or to destroy power transmission lines as Dave Foreman was convicted of conspiring to do. Whether he realized it or not, Al Gore's eloquently flawed call to arms is a battle cry to join the same revolution advocated by Dave Foreman and the Unabomber. Al Gore must bear the major responsibility for banning CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons). On the pretext of the unproved, highly controversial theory that CFCs are destroying the ozone layer, Gore bombed inexpensive, safe, refrigeration. The impact on industry of this one salvo is far more deadly than all the Unabomber's bombs. The search for alternative refrigeration is already costing hundreds of billions of dollars - needlessly. And pricing refrigeration out of the market for billions of people in developing countries. This is war on industry. Al Gore must bear the major responsibility for implementing the Wildlands Project in America. It was his "reinvention of government" that provided the smoke-screen behind which he created the White House Ecosystem Management Task Force that ultimately developed the Ecosystem Management Policy that instructs federal employees to consider human beings as a "biological resource." Al Gore must bear the major responsibility for allowing Tim Wirth to agree to accept the recommendations of the next Conference of the Parties on carbon dioxide emission reductions. Under the Framework Convention on Climate Change, promoted by Al Gore, the United States is bound to comply with the protocols of the Convention. The Conference of the Parties wants America to reduce its energy consumption by as much as 80 percent. At the last meeting in December, Wirth refused to accept the recommendation, presumably because its consequences would be felt before the 1996 election. According to scientists who attended the meeting, Wirth agreed to accept the recommendations of the 1997 meeting (after the elections) regardless of what those recommendations may be. Such a reduction of energy use in America would be war on industry and devastating to the American people. The war on industry is not limited to energy it has also trained its awesome power directly on industrial chemicals as well. Al Gore shares responsibility with Earth First! allies, Greenpeace and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), in a concerted effort to ban all uses of chlorine. In 1993, Greenpeace issued several reports alleging that man-made chlorine is responsible for all manner of human ills. Congressman Bill Richardson (D-NM) introduced two bills that would have effectively banned chlorine in America. Fortunately, the bills did not survive the 103rd Congress. Theo Colburn, a scientist for the World Wide Fund for Nature announced that chlorine was the cause of small allegator penises and her colleague, Louis J. Guillette, told a

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Congressional Committee that "There is not a man in this room that is half the man his grandfather was." Al Gore wrote the Foreword for Theo Colborn's latest book, Our Stolen Future. He calls it a sequel to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, and it is a continuation of unscientific, scary scenarios designed to frighten people into accepting public policies that have little or no benefit to the environment, but are devastating to industry. Chlorine is an essential ingredient in 96 percent of all crop-protection products, almost all pharmaceutical products, thousands of plastic products (including PVC pipe), and 98 percent of all public water supplies. A ban on chlorine is war on industry - and on human beings. Not a single case of cholera was reported this century in Peru, Columbia or Ecuador until 1991, when these countries were advised to ban chlorine. They did. By January 1994, 8,622 deaths resulted from 941,804 cases of cholera, according to the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, published by the Massachusetts Medical Society (which also publishes the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine). The revolution called for by the Unabomber, Earth First! and Dave Foreman has been joined by Al Gore, Greenpeace, the World Wide Fund for Nature, and a host of mainstream environmental organizations and institutions, both in America and throughout the international environmental community. The success or failure of the revolution depends, to a very large extent, upon who is elected President of the United States in November, 1996.

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(184 June, 1996)

Kindred Spirits: Unabomber and Bill Clinton By Henry Lamb "Our immediate goal...is the destruction of the worldwide industrial system," says the Unabomber in his April, 1995 letter to The New York Times. The Unabomber chose mail bombs as his weapon; Clinton chose to build an administration hell-bent on achieving the same goal. Those who have not read Sustainable America: A New Consensus, the report of the President's Council on Sustainable Development, or measured the impact of Clinton's appointees, may think the Unabomber-Clinton connection to be a stretch. In reality, the connection is real. The Unabomber's approach is crass, violent, and repulsive; Clinton's approach is smooth, duplicitous, and repulsive. The goal is the same: the destruction of the worldwide industrial system and the inevitable reorganization of human society. Bill Clinton must bear the ultimate responsibility for his Vice President's actions, as well as the actions of his appointees. The Ecosystem Management Policy, which is little more than a surrogate for the Wildlands Project, is being implemented by Clinton appointees Bruce Babbitt, former head of the League of Conservation Voters; George Frampton, former head of The Wilderness Society; Rafe Pomerance, former policy analyst for the World Resources Institute; Brooks Yeager, former Vice President of the National Audubon Society; Thomas Lovejoy, former officer of the World Wide Fund for Nature; Jessica Tuchman Matthews, former Vice President of the World Resources Institute; David Gardiner, former legislative director for the Sierra Club; John Leshy, former official at the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Reed F. Noss, author of the Wildlands Project. His President's Council on Sustainable Development includes Jay Hair, former President of the National Wildlife Federation, now President of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN); Jonathan Lash, President of the World Resources Institute; Michelle Perrault, International Vice President of the Sierra Club; John C. Sawhill, President of The Nature Conservancy; Fred D. Krupp, President of the Environmental Defense Fund; and John H. Adams, Executive Director of the Natural Resources Defense Council. These are by no means all of the officials who now work for the Clinton White House who got their start in a radical environmental group such as Earth First! Another Clinton appointee, Gustav Speth, founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council, former President of the World Resources Institute, and Clinton transition team member, now heads the United Nations Development Program and is a strong advocate of global taxation and global governance. The Clinton White House, from Al Gore to the Director of Yellowstone National Park, is promoting global governance through the Climate Change Treaty, the Biodiversity Treaty, the Ozone Treaty, Agenda 21, and virtually every other UN initiative that has emerged since 1992. A proposal floated by Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) would provide the frame work for global taxation and would side-step Bob Dole's bill which calls for withdrawal from the UN in the event of global taxation. The proposal is expected to be introduced in this session of Congress. It

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could not be introduced without the knowledge and blessing of the Democratic leadership - which begins with Bill Clinton.

By far, the most deadly threat to the worldwide industrial society is the call for a World Conference on Global Governance in 1998, issued by the UN-funded Commission on Global Governance. The purpose of the conference is to present the treaties and agreements necessary to achieve global governance by the year 2000. The blueprint for global governance is laid out in great detail in a recent publication entitled Our Global Neighborhood, the Report of the Commission on Global Governance. The recommendations would create a world government to enforce international law within the boundaries of sovereign states. The primary reason global governance is necessary, according to the report, is to protect the environment by reducing consumption and thereby saving natural resources. A high priority method to be used is taxing fossil fuels so energy costs will be so high, consumers can no longer afford the products made by the industrial-technological society. A UN standing army and a global central bank are also proposed. The global governance agenda is well-developed and now before the world for implementation. Bill Clinton's number two man in the State Department, Strobe Talbott, wrote an essay for Time magazine in 1992. He said: "Nationhood as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single global authority...`citizen of the world' will have assumed real meaning." If Clinton's appointees remain in the White House for four more years, they will surely achieve the Unabomber's goal of destroying the worldwide industrial system.

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(185 July, 1996)

Sustainable Communities; Vanquished Freedom By Henry Lamb "Sustainability" is a term that is just beginning to reach Joe A. Citizen; in the months and years ahead, it will dominate virtually every aspect of American life. Since the concept was first defined in the 1987 report by Gro Harlem Brundtland (Vice-president of the World Socialist Party), it has swelled into a tidal wave that is washing across the world and has now crashed onto American shores and will soon inundate every American Community. The "sustainability" paradigm rests upon the firm belief, as expressed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), that: "Humanity's collective imperative now is to shift modern society rapidly onto a sustainable path or have it dissolve of its own ecologically unsustainable doings." The same document, prepared for the World Bank and for the United Nations Habitat II Conference in Istanbul, says that society has two choices. "One choice is to go as we go and do as we do." Or, "We shift our consumption, extraction and harvesting patterns and technologies; reframe our ethical choices," and reshape, redesign, planned communities "within the dictates of natural ecology." The first choice, which to some may sound like freedom "to go as we go and do as we do," is the unsustainable, unethical choice, according to HUD. The ethical choice is: "The vision for `Community Sustainability,' defined as the condition of social, economic and ecological harmony that people require, deserve and must create where they live, if their lives and their inheritors' lives are to be meaningful, wholesome and hopeful." Joe A. Citizen, who now is pretty much free to go as he goes and do as he does, might be surprised to learn that HUD considers his life is meaningless, unwholesome, and hopeless. The HUD document, the report of the President's Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD), as well as the United Nations documents that call for the drastic reorganization of society, all claim that: "By science's consensus we have but decades to recast the ways we operate as a modern society with respect to earth's natural ecological systems of support." Instead of producing specific, peer-reviewed scientific evidence to support such claims, the "precautionary principle" is offered, which says that if a serious threat is thought to exist, action must be taken even in the face of scientific uncertainty. Every alleged ecological calamity - global warming, population explosion, and biodiversity loss - is widely challenged throughout the scientific community. For every scientist on the calamity bandwagon, there is another scientist of equal stature to refute the allegations. At the very least, society should be aware that there is no scientific consensus to justify the dramatic changes that are planned. Proponents of sustainability label detractors as unethical, and continue the push to recast society into planned communities, managed through an evolving system of "good governance" that dilutes the authority of elected officials and elevates the power of NGOs (non-government organizations). The objective of "sustainability" is to integrate economic, social, and environmental policies to achieve reduced consumption, social equity, and to preserve and restore biodiversity.

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Sustainable communities is but one facet of a much broader sustainable agenda. It is the initiative that will touch most Americans first, and in fact, is already being advanced throughout communities across the country. The U.S. Forest Service has awarded $700,000 to the Chicago Region Biodiversity Council, a collaborative effort of 34 federal agencies and environmental groups, established to begin the process of making Chicagoland into a "sustainable community." Similar processes are underway, funded by government and private foundations, all across America. The PCSD recommends that tax money be used to provide incentives to communities that engage in collaborative community planning for sustainability, and that funding authorized under other federal programs be denied or delayed for communities that are slow to begin the collaborative process toward sustainability. Originated by the United Nations, embraced by the Gore/Clinton administration, implemented by an army of coordinated NGOs, the tidal wave of "sustainability" is crashing across America. Most Americans have not seen the warnings and will not recognize the dangers until they are drowning in sustainability.

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(186 July, 1996)

Sustainable Communities: Yours could be next! By Henry Lamb If your community has a population of 50,000 or more, someone is working to create a "sustainability council," or, it has already been done. Smaller communities, your time will come - soon. The federal government, in collaboration with selected NGOs (non-government organizations), is encouraging the creation of local "sustainability councils" which are to become the driving force in the reorganization of society. These councils may have a variety of names. Regardless of the name, however, their function is pre-planned, their procedures are pre-conceived, and the outcome of their work is pre-determined. Your community is about to be reorganized, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), so your life will be "meaningful, wholesome, and hopeful," whether you like it or not. The initiative in your community could come from any federal agency through a grant to a municipality or directly to an NGO. Or the initiative could be funded by a private foundation and coordinated by an NGO. By using a variety of start-up mechanisms and an assortment of names, the well-coordinated effort disguises the appearance of the massive federal/international social re-engineering project that is underway. The council, by whatever name, will enlist the support of all relevant local, state, and federal government agencies, then add representatives from the academic community, carefully selected individuals from the business community, and the leaders of cooperating NGOs. This phase is usually completed before the community at large knows it has been done. Frequently, the first few meetings of the council will be attended only by invited guests, chosen from the membership lists of participating NGOs, or for some other strategic purpose. Sympathetic individuals in the media will have been provided background material and enlisted to support the effort. Most community residents will become aware of the effort through a 60-second TV news item or a brief story in the local newspaper. The story will make it appear that the entire community has come together to solve common problems and build a beautiful future. Exactly what that future includes will not be revealed. Each of the reorganizational components will be revealed over time, only as necessary, to avoid the inevitable backlash from private citizens as they learn how their lives will be impacted. The work of the council is to devise whatever mechanisms may be necessary to achieve several objectives: reduce consumption - especially energy; restore biodiversity through an ecosystem management approach; stop urban sprawl; and convince local residents that they are "unethical" if they fail to support whatever it takes to achieve these objectives, through massive, coordinated re-education and propaganda campaigns. Here is a picture of your community when it has been reorganized to become "sustainable," taken from HUD's report to the United Nations: "For this hopeful future we may envision an entirely fresh set of infrastructures that use fully

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automated, very light, elevated rail systems for daytime metro region travel and nighttime goods movement, such as have been conceptualized and being positioned for production at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis; we will see all settlements linked up by extensive bike, recreation and agro-forestry "E-ways" (environment-ways) such as in Madison, Wisconsin; we will find healthy, productive soils where there is decline and erosion through the widespread use of remineralization from igneous and volcanic rock sources (much of it the surplus quarry fines or `rockdust,' from concrete and asphalt-type road construction or from reservoir silts); we will be growing foods, dietary supplements and herbs that make over our unsustainable reliance upon foods and medicines that have adverse soil, environmental, or health side-effects; less and less land will go for animal husbandry and more for grains, tubers, and legumes. Gradually, decent standards of equity will be in place for women, for children and for the disadvantaged; the `peace dividend' will be forced upon us as the insane costs of military armament become challenged globally." The purpose of the "sustainability council" is to give the appearance that the reorganization of society is the result of local initiative and reflects local desires. The fact of the matter is that how you are to live in your own community has been determined in Gland, Switzerland, confirmed by the United Nations in Rio de Janeiro, embraced by Al Gore in Washington, and is now being imposed upon you in the name of "sustainability."

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(187 July, 1996)

Sustainable Communities in the Bioregion By Henry Lamb The Sierra Club has proposed the reorganization of North America into 21 bioregions delineated by their ecological characteristics (Sierra, March/April, 1994). Each bioregion includes several states, counties, municipalities, and communities. The "sustainable communities" initiative is the first building-block toward the construction of bioregions and the total reorganization of America into a "sustainable" society as envisioned by the United Nations. Sustainable communities must be seen in the context of the broader, published agenda, which limits privately owned property to no more than 25% of the total land area, removes human populations from at least 50% of the total land area, and requires that the remaining land be managed by government/NGO (non-government organization) partnerships. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) suggests that the time frame for reorganizing sustainable societies can be no more than three decades. Others believe it will take 50 to 100 years. Whatever the time frame, the process has begun with the sustainable communities’ initiative. Each community, regardless of size, will have its own "sustainability council." A common characteristic of these councils is that they are dominated by individuals from government agencies charged with the implementation of the government's sustainability agenda, supported by representatives from NGOs whose salaries are paid by grants from the federal government or by cooperating foundations. Local government officials, who are enticed by incentive grants from the feds, and local residents are typically outnumbered and outmaneuvered. The first function of the sustainability council is to complete the "visioning" process. This process produces a document that describes how the community should be organized to achieve the goals required to make the community sustainable. In the context of bioregions, individual communities cannot be left to design their own future. HUD says:

"there will be the linking up of networks of communities of varied sizes within quite varied and multiple regional contexts, such as `community constellations' linked by compacts based upon common interests. Between communities will be rural landscapes - highly functional landscapes - based upon entirely fresh understandings of landscape ecology and its integral relationship to the sustainability of urbanization."

Translated into plain English, that means that sustainability councils will coordinate their "visions" to achieve a regional or bioregional vision consistent with the ultimate outcome that has already been determined. To achieve the predetermined outcome, some smaller communities will have to be completely shut down. That process is already underway in the northwest and other parts of the country near federal forests and public lands. By banning logging on public lands, as the Sierra Club has proposed, residents of logging-dependent communities have no choice but to move out to find new sources of income. By denying grazing and mining permits, still more communities are evacuated and gobbled up by the wilderness required by the

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bioregional agenda. It is the mid-size communities, suburbs, and bedroom communities that will feel the next crunch. These are the communities that are described as "urban sprawl" which is to be stopped. These are the communities that have devastated "greenfields" and are destroying ecosystems. Visions of sustainable communities will put an immediate stop to future geographical growth. The vision documents will also reveal a planned reduction or elimination of infrastructure support to communities outside the "approved" area of urbanization. Financing for activities outside the approved "greenlined" area will become impossible. Land use restrictions outside the approved area will tighten. Farming outside the approved "management" areas will become impossible, and people who choose to live outside the approved sustainability ethic will be ridiculed and made to feel inferior. People who do not get on the sustainability bandwagon can expect to be treated very much like the people who choose to smoke cigarettes. The common thread that weaves the various councils together is the NGO. Coordinated by their national and international headquarters, and fueled by federal and foundation funding, NGOs will see that the various community vision documents mesh into a bioregional vision that is consistent with the global agenda. When your community's sustainability council is formed, look for a representative from the Sierra Club, whose International Vice President, Michelle Perrault, is a member of the President's Council on Sustainable Development, and whose Board member, Dave Foreman, is largely responsible for developing "The Wildlands Project", the master plan for bioregions.

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(188 July, 1996)

Sustainable Communities Means Managed Societies By Henry Lamb "Sustainability" - sustainable communities, sustainable development, sustainable agriculture, - is not simply a comprehensive approach to environmental protection. The recurring theme throughout the sustainability literature is the integration of "economic, equity, and environmental" policies. That grandiose language is translated by specific policy recommendations which use the environment as an excuse to manage the economy to achieve social equity. Throughout the literature, terms such as "harness market forces" describe proposals to impose consumption taxes on products that "management" deems to be unsustainable. Air conditioning, convenience foods, single-family housing, and cars are among the products already determined to be unsustainable. "Equity" means forcing those who produce an income to provide for those who do not. "Environmental protection" means constraining individual freedom to accommodate "management" to prevent the impending impoverishment of the planet. "Management" is not the government. The government is simply the instrument for enforcing the dictates of management. Management is actually the NGOs, headed by the big three - the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN); the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF); and the World Resources Institute (WRI). These three NGOs have set the ideological agenda. They have created a world-wide network of affiliated NGOs, well-positioned and adequately funded to implement the agenda. And they are acquiring the legal status to manage national, state, and local governments, as well as the lives of individual citizens. Sustainability councils, dominated by NGOs and public officials paid to implement the sustainability policy, are being formed in every community. These councils coordinate their activity with regional councils also dominated by NGOs. Ultimately, each bioregion is to have a bioregional council to coordinate, or manage, the activities within the bioregion. The function of governments within the bioregion will be simply to enforce the dictates of the council. Ultimate enforcement is to come from the United Nations. Official documents now published by the UN call for the creation of a Petitions Council, and an Assembly of the People, both selected from representatives of accredited NGOs. The function of the Assembly of the People is to review resolutions of the General Assembly. The function of the Petitions Council is to review compliance petitions from bioregional councils and direct the petitions to the appropriate agency within the UN for enforcement. All of the environment - including private property - is to be placed under the "trusteeship" of the UN Trusteeship Council, consisting of no more than 23 individuals selected from accredited NGOs. The existing World Trade Organization as well as the proposed Economic Security Council, have unlimited authority to impose a wide range of sanctions - including military action by a standing UN army - against any nation deemed to be not in compliance with any treaty or UN dictate. The Law of the Seas Treaty has already created the International Seabed Authority which has

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legal jurisdiction over all non-territorial waters. Anyone wishing to salvage a shipwreck or harvest ocean resources must obtain a permit and pay annual royalties. Application fees may be a quarter-million dollars or more, and unspecified royalties are authorized by the treaty. The United States has not ratified the treaty, but Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, told a Stanford University audience on April 9, that ratification of the Law of the Seas treaty and the Biodiversity treaty would be top priority items on the Clinton/Gore agenda for 1997. The plan for a world-wide, managed society is in place, published extensively in the literature of the United Nations. The plan is so massive, so complex, so bizarre, that it is difficult to comprehend in its totality. The public has seen only small segments of the plan at any one time. The various world conferences over the past four years have drawn only limited publicity for a short time. The President's Council on Sustainable Development has conducted its work in a public vacuum. And any negative discussion about the UN or about the environment is quickly denied and cast aside by the administration and the media as nothing more than the rantings of right-wing extremist whackos. All the while, day by day, the plan unfolds. In every community, a net is being deployed to surround every American. Over the next few years, expect the net to be slowly drawn around all individual freedoms, and tightened relentlessly until the managed activities of human beings produce the sustainability envisioned by the international managers.

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(189 August, 1996) Global governance at work: Habitat II By Henry Lamb Habitat I, which met 20 years ago, declared: "...public control of land is therefore indispensable. Public ownership of land is justified in favor of the common good, rather than to protect the interests of the already privileged." Habitat II has declared: "full and progressive realization of the right to adequate housing" The U.S. delegation supported this controversial universal "right." Like Agenda 21, from the Rio Conference on Environment and Development, the Conference document has no legal authority. The document serves to represent "international consensus" upon which legal documents are later developed. The universal "right" to housing is an old issue. It appears, in sort of a back-door fashion, in the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which was ratified by the U.S. on October 21, 1994. The universal "right" to housing first appeared in the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, to which the U.S. is a signatory, but which has not been ratified by the U.S. Senate. The idea of a "right" to housing also appears in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has not been ratified by the Senate. The consensus reached by the Habitat II Conference, which convened in Istanbul the first half of June, adds international pressure on the U.S. to ratify the concept in the various UN documents that are floating around Congress. Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, told a Stanford University audience in April that ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, along with the Biodiversity Treaty and the Treaty on the Law of the Sea, would be high on Clinton's second-term agenda. A declaration by a UN organization that there exists a "universal right to housing" provides no one with a house. An international Convention containing the same declaration, even when ratified by the Senate - provides no one with a house. What is does is authorize and empower the United Nations to supply housing to whomever it chooses. What it does is establish the UN as the UN as a socialist government, authorized to redistribute the wealth of those who have earned the right to live in their own homes - to those who have not. U.S. delegates to Habitat II, appointed by President Bill Clinton, not only endorsed, but actually promoted the agenda which is based socialist on principles. Marxist philosophy, whether it is called socialism, communism, collectivism, stateism, or whatever, is built upon the belief that the state, or government, is sovereign. Rights and freedoms are the state's to give. Democracy, in a Marxist society, is the process by which individuals negotiate to convince the government to grant a right or freedom. In a speech to the UN General Assembly in 1988, Soviet President Gorbachev said "Peace and maximum democracy are the guarantors of freedom. Our aim is to grant maximum freedom to people, to the individual, to society." The Marxist view is that government is omnipotent; individuals can have no rights, freedom, or property that is not granted by the state. Ronald Reagan had a different view. He said: "Freedom and democracy are the best guarantors

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for peace." In America, we believe that people, not governments, are sovereign. Governments have, or should have, no power or authority not specifically granted by the people. Apparently, the U.S. delegates to Habitat II tend to agree more with Mr. Gorbachev than with Mr. Reagan. And Mr. Clinton has promised to ask the Senate to ratify another international Convention, based on socialist philosophy, to give to the UN the power to grant a "right" to housing to those the UN feels are entitled to housing. It doesn't end there. The conference document calls for the banning of all forms of housing discrimination. An owner would have to sell or rent to virtually anyone who offered to buy or rent: drug dealers, homosexuals, gangsters, and presumably, even to those who had no apparent means to pay. Nature gives no person nor any species a "right" to housing. Every person and every species has to fend for themselves and provide their own housing. What gives the UN the audacity to think it has the authority to grant a "right" nature didn't? The UN believes it is "unjust" for some people to have housing and others to be homeless. Those who disagree are heartless and uncaring, in the UN-socialist view. The fact is, that housing, and every other "right" has to be earned. What is given by government, and called a "right," can just as easily be taken away. A right earned with sweat and blood can also be taken away if the people allow the government to usurp power they, the people, have not granted.

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(190 August, 1996)

Global governance at work: Civil Society By Henry Lamb Civil society is defined by the UN-funded Commission on Global Governance to be those NGOs (non-government organizations) accredited by the United Nations. NGOs that have not been accredited by the UN are referred to as "populist, activist organizations" which have "the potential to strike down the carefully crafted products of international deliberation, usually on the grounds of nationalism." In other words, an NGO that is approved, or accredited by the UN is "civil society." Those NGOs that have not been accredited, such as the Environmental Conservation Organization, are "populist" organizations. The Commission warns that "Yielding to internal political pressures (generated by `populist' organizations) can in a moment destroy the results of a decade of toil." Civil society is the mechanism through which global governance works. Since 1992, each of the world conferences sponsored by the UN has opened the door wider to accredited NGOs, and called for the elevation of their status in UN affairs. The Habitat II Conference, recently held in Istanbul, made it official. With the adoption of Rule 61, approved by the UN General Assembly, accredited NGOs may now select representatives to serve as official delegates and participate in the conference debate and votes. Habitat II has set the example to be followed in all future UN conferences, and has challenged national governments to follow their lead and elevate NGO participation in the national decision-making process. Not surprisingly, the President's Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD) final report, Sustainable America: A New Consensus, calls for a "collaborative" decision-making process that provides for greater participation by selected NGOs. The PCSD report says: "We need a new collaborative decision process that leads to better decisions; more rapid change; and more sensible use of human, natural, and financial resources in achieving our goals." Another reading of this same thought might be: "Elected officials at the local, state, and national level are not achieving our goals, therefore, we need to bypass them." Civil society governance is a way to bypass elected officials and avoid accountability to the electorate. The process of civil society governance is very sophisticated. It is presented as "public/private partnerships." No better example exists than the proposals of the PCSD. To create so-called "sustainable communities," the PCSD recommends federal incentive grants to organizations that will sponsor a "community visioning process." A "stakeholders" council is organized, with care taken to select representatives from only those NGOs that are known to support the agenda. Typically, the council will be dominated by such NGO representatives and representatives from government agencies. A few elected officials will be added, along with a few business people - to give the appearance of broad community support. Populist, activist organizations, or those organizations that do not support the agenda, are systematically excluded, and frequently do not learn about the process until after the council has been formed. Civil society is seen to be the instrument, not only of creating a vision of sustainability, but of

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implementing that vision. NGOs are increasingly the recipients of grants from the federal government, as well as from private foundations, to implement some aspect of the global/PCSD agenda. NGOs are a primary medium for condom distribution in this country and around the world. NGOs are also used to spread the propaganda that passes for "environmental education." NGOs get grants from one agency of the federal government to sue another agency of the federal government. And then, under the authority of laws NGOs have lobbied into existence, collect attorney fees and expenses for the law suits. Civil society is wreaking havoc with the rest of society. Civil society is accountable to no one. Elected officials can at least be un-elected. How does the rest of society un-elect Maurice Strong, who heads several NGOs that are responsible for advancing the global environmental/social agenda around the world? How does the rest of society diminish the influence of the World Resources Institute, or the International Union for the Conservation of Nature or the World Wide Fund for Nature - all NGOs driving the global agenda? The rest of society (the uncivil portion) needs to be aware as these "public/private" partnerships and "community visioning councils" appear in their own community and realize that they are seeing global governance at work in their own communities.

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(191 August, 1996)

Global governance at work: What's wrong with it? By Henry Lamb Listening to the sales pitch of the sustainable development crowd, one might think that without it, the world is destined to doom, and with it, the world is about to enter a new era of utopian ecstasy. Of course, neither is true. There is little, if any, scientific foundation for the draconian policies being inflicted upon society to "save the planet." Nor are there benefits to be derived from voluntarily handing over to the UN, our God-given, Constitutionally-guaranteed rights and freedoms. But every day, regulatory policies increase, and individual rights and freedoms are diminished. Global governance - as it is presently designed - cannot succeed. Global governance cannot succeed because it is designed on a philosophy that is fundamentally flawed. The Chinese delegate to the UN Conference on Human Rights, Liu Huaqui, expressed the UN philosophy quite succinctly: "There are no absolute individual rights and freedom, except those prescribed by and within the framework of the law. Nobody shall place his own rights and interests above those of the state and society." Really! There is a law higher than the state. To begin with, humans created the state and the law. And, of course, humans came into existence by an even higher authority. There was no law, other than the law of nature, when the pilgrims first stepped onto American soil. Humans created the state and the law. The state is, or should be, accountable to the people who created it. There was no United Nations until the humans meeting in San Francisco in 1945, created it. The UN is, or should be, accountable to the people who created it. The idea that people have rights and freedoms only by virtue of a grant from the state is not simply socialist, it is ridiculous. All people are born with the instinct to eat and to reproduce - and the equipment to do both. That is all that nature provided. People, like every other species, are born free to do whatever is necessary to eat and reproduce. Constraints on the freedom are placed on people by the people themselves. Nature intended them to be free - free to kill or be killed, or to love and be loved. Nature has not improved upon that basic design. Man, on the other hand, has tinkered with the design and called it improvement. Early on, man learned to control others to lighten his own load. Governments were created to control people. People were controlled by their governments until that basic instinct to be free stormed the Bastille, penned the Magna Charta, and launched the Pinta, Nina, and Santa Marie. That scruffy collection of wilderness-conquering ingrates we respectfully refer to as our Founding Fathers drafted a document which severely limited the power of government - and maximized the freedom of individuals. The government thus created - the United States of America - is not responsible for elevating society to previously unimagined heights. That credit must go to the individuals who enjoyed the freedom provided by the severely limited government. Prosperity and social progress is directly linked to individual freedom. Poverty and social decay is directly linked to the absence of individual freedom. One need look no further than to a comparison of America with the

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former Soviet Union to realize the validity of the observation. But even in America, prosperity and social progress is waning. Could it be related to the simultaneous erosion of individual freedom? Certainly! What's wrong with global governance is this: the entire design of global governance is built upon the socialist notion that individual rights and freedoms are gifts to be bestowed by an omnipotent government in exchange for individual behavior supportive of the government's agenda. The United States should not support this foolish notion. Instead, the United States should be insisting that the United Nations get out of the way and let other nations discover the wealth that follows the birth of freedom. Unfortunately, the U.S. government appears to have forgotten the limitations placed upon it by the Constitution. It has found ways to ignore and bypass even the fundamental right to own and use private property. It is using administrative procedures and Executive Orders to bypass Congress and advance the global agenda as rapidly as possible in America. It is also supporting virtually every UN proposal to advance global governance around the world. Global governance cannot possibly succeed because it ignores a fundamental law of nature: people are born to be free. Unfortunately, like three generations of Russians, Americans and the rest of the world may be forced to live through the suffering caused by the inevitable failure of the flawed notion of global governance.

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(192 August, 1996)

Global governance at work: Defeated by the people By Henry Lamb Ultimately, freedom shall prevail. The "gates of hell" shall not prevail against the truth, and the truth is - that people are born to be free. It may take several more generations or several more centuries, but ultimately, people will learn how to live together as free people - unfettered by the enlightened elite, who in every generation, think they know what is best for the rest of society. The generation that now bridges the millennium will determine whether society moves forward by expanding individual freedom, or moves backward by diminishing it. Like Madison, Jefferson, and the others who took time away from conquering the wilderness to craft the best government known to man, the current crop of Americans must take time away from earning a living to protect what remains of the best government known to man. It begins with each person - individually. It is not politics. It is not "the establishment." It is not "those people." It is a personal, individual, gut-wrenching responsibility that rests heavily upon the shoulders of every individual who has enjoyed the freedom this country has provided. People - individually - must stand up and say enough is enough. Private property must remain in the hands of individuals. The highest priority for global governance is to get land and all natural resources under the control of government, and then get government under the control of the United Nations. People must recognize that federal jurisdiction over wetlands is an excuse to exercise federal control over private property. People must recognize that "critical habitat" has less to do with endangered species than extending the power of government over the land and lives of individuals. Heritage corridors, natural landmarks, and buffer-zones around National Parks are warm and fuzzy-sounding terms to disguise the ulterior objective of exercising land control. The Nature Conservancy, and the more than 700 similar organizations, are not friends of freedom. Between 1964 and 1994 The Nature Conservancy acquired three million acres of land to protect nature, according to their pamphlets. But according to the General Accounting office, 2.5 million of those acres were transferred to the government, at a profit. Moreover, The Nature Conservancy took millions and millions of tax-payer dollars in the form of federal grants, to acquire the property in the first place. Land, and the resources it contains, must remain in the hands of private individuals. The government (state, local, and federal) already owns 40% of the total land area in America, and through environmental and heritage laws, may claim jurisdiction over virtually every square inch of the remaining 60%. People must realize that without land, and the resources it contains, no other freedom matters. It is not enough to simply draw the line at 40%; we must demand that land, and the right to use it, be returned to private citizens. Only in so doing can the global governance cabal be defeated.

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No more state and federal acquisitions of land to "protect" biodiversity. Nature needs no protection. The so-called "fragile" ecosystems were here long before governments, and were designed to endure, in fact, to thrive on the activities of the species that inhabit them - including the human species. No more land-use restrictions from the enlightened elite bureaucrats who think they know better how to use the land than the people whose lives are dependent upon it. No more sit back and take it. Stand up, and say enough is enough! People need to watch for "public/private" partnerships developing in their own community. People need to attend meetings of "visioning councils" in their own community. People need to find out what is being taught in their local schools. People need to visit with their elected officials and ask them to protect their private property and individual freedoms, and not to support the on-rush of "sustainable development" initiatives that are being imposed upon communities. People need to join local and national organizations that are fighting to protect the Constitutional principles upon which America was founded. People need to vote - and vote intelligently. Every candidate should be asked to state his or her position on private property issues, and on global governance issues - before a single vote is cast. People must realize that individuals, meeting their personal responsibility to uphold freedom, have the only power on earth strong enough to defeat the tidal wave of global governance that is sweeping across the land. People can - and must - stop the rush to global governance.

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(193 September, 1996)

Global warming: is it real? By Henry Lamb To the massive UN bureaucracy, it no longer matters whether or not global warming is actually occurring. The UN has declared a "wide ranging consensus" in the scientific community, and that "urgent" measures must be taken to prevent catastrophic calamities. This message was delivered to more than 1500 delegates and NGO (non-government organization) observers attending the second meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COPII) to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) in Geneva Switzerland, July 8 - 19. The basis for the doom-and-gloom declaration is the Second Assessment Report (SAR) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), another UN organization. The report, two years in the making, was adopted in December, 1995 by the IPCC. After the report had been approved and adopted by the scientists, the lead author of the report, B. D. Santor, acting with the consent of the Co-chair of the Working Group, John Houghton, and with the consent of the Executive Secretary of the Convention, Michael Cutajar - changed the report significantly without the approval of the scientists. Dr Freidrich Seitz, President emeritus of Rockefeller University and former President of the National Academy of Sciences, said: "I have never witnessed a more disturbing corruption of the peer-review process than the events that led to this IPCC report. Nearly all the changes worked to remove hints of the skepticism with which many scientists regard global warming claims." A hundred distinguished scientists released a joint statement on July 10 in Geneva which said that: "there is still no scientific consensus on the subject of climate change. On the contrary, most scientists now accept the fact that actual observations from earth satellites show no climate warming whatsoever." The statement emerged from a recent conference on global warming sponsored jointly by the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) and the European Academy for Environmental Affairs in Leipzig, Germany. Despite the very real and growing controversy in the scientific community, Cutajar told a press conference in Geneva that there was "wide-ranging" consensus among scientists with only a few dissenters who were closely aligned to coal and oil interests. A reporter from _co·logic asked Cutajar if the strength of the so-called consensus had been measured by any kind of vote, in view of the growing controversy. Cutajar, obviously irritated, replied: "Consensus is not unanimity; it is very much up to the president."

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The UN is desperately attempting to ignore the rising voices of dissent in the scientific community. When a response is necessary, it is usually a disparaging comment designed to discredit the dissenter. Moreover, the UN is moving forward with a full-court propaganda press. Professor G.O.P. Obasi, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), told the delegates that "...the issue is now clear, the time for debate is over and the onus is on us to take decisive action fairly quickly. We now have the evidence which makes the FCCC an absolute necessity." He called on the delegates to "Recognize the urgency of the situation," and to "take urgent measures to implement the FCCC." The Conference of the Parties, as well as the rest of the UN machinery, are moving forward as if global warming were an absolute fact when, in fact, it is not. The World Health Organization (WHO) released a three-year study which purports to predict the health consequences of climate change. The fine-print in the study reveals that the projections of doom-and-gloom are based on computer models by eleven scientists, funded originally by the U.S Environmental Protection Agency in 1993. Climate change has not been a major issue for most Americans because until now, compliance has not been mandatory. The Geneva meeting, however, sets the stage for a legally-binding protocol (regulation) which will send the price of electricity and petroleum products -- and every product that is manufactured with the use of fossil-fuel energy -- soaring well beyond the budgets of most people.

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(194 September, 1996)

Global warming: what it means By Henry Lamb Whether or not global warming is actually occurring is not subject to debate at the UN. The only remaining question is how to implement the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) as rapidly and as stringently as possible. The original terms of the treaty require developed countries to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases to the 1990 level by the year 2000. A proposal by the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), introduced in Berlin last year, calls for a reduction to levels 20% below 1990 levels by the year 2005. The OASIS proposal has become the proposal favored by the UN. The first meeting of the Conference of the Parties adopted the "Berlin Mandate" which is an agreement to adopt a legally-binding protocol (regulation) by 1997. Should the AOSIS proposal become the legally-binding protocol in 1997, independent economic studies indicate that a reduction of energy consumption between 60% and 80% would be necessary for compliance. The American delegation to the Geneva meetings appears to be supporting the AOSIS proposal. While the U.S. has made no public announcement on an acceptable target, Timothy Wirth, head of the American delegation, has said that America would support a legally-binding protocol. A delegate from Kuwait told eco·logic that in private negotiating sessions, he had been frustrated by the American delegate who argued against Kuwait's efforts to reduce the impact of the proposed protocol. Besides Tim Wirth, the American delegation includes Eileen Claussen, who negotiated the Montreal Protocol (which banned freon), David Donniger, and David Gardiner, both of whom were previously officials in major Green Advocacy Groups (GAGs). The U.S. is not expected to make clear its position on emissions reduction targets until after the November election. Orchestrated to advance the negotiations, the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released a joint report called Climate Change and Human Health. The report claims that global warming has already caused an increase in malaria, dengue and yellow fevers, cholera, liver fluke, and Hantavirus. The report predicts that unless carbon dioxide emissions are dramatically reduced, these diseases will afflict an additional 50 - 80 million people per year. Moreover, the report claims that the polar ice caps will melt, islands will sink, coastal areas will be flooded, and all manner of storms, cyclones, and severe weather will befall the planet. According to the WHO, the report is based on the work of eleven scientists using computer simulations in a project that was funded originally in 1993 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The computer simulations differ sharply from the actual scientific record which reveals that the net change in global mean temperature for the entire century has been less than 10C -- well within normal variability. The last half of the century -- when carbon dioxide emissions

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increased most dramatically -- the temperature actually declined. Since 1979, global temperature has been measured by satellite and is extremely accurate. The actual record reveals a slight downward trend since 1979, despite claims to the contrary by Al Gore, G.O.P. Obasi (Secretary-General of WMO) and the advocates of global warming. The reason global warming is being advanced despite the absence of supporting science may be related to a presentation made by Mohamed T. El-Ashry, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Global Environment Facility (GEF). As he released GEF's quarterly report, he told the delegates that his agency had leveraged $462.3 million into $3.2 billion in climate change projects. An analysis of those projects found 33 which listed as "executing agency," or "collaborating organization" three key NGOs (non-government organizations): International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN); World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF); and World Resources Institute (WRI). These 33 projects totaled $354 million. These three NGOs are the driving force behind the UNEP and at the national level, coordinate the activity of NGOs that are responsible for lobbying UN policy into national law.

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(195m September, 1996)

Global warming: a matter of consensus By Henry Lamb The UN operates on neither the principle of a free press nor the democratic process -- at least as it is known in America. Most of the sessions during the two-week meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) were posted "Privee." A reporter for eco·logic who ignored the sign was told by a UN legal advisor that the UN's rules of procedure provided the presiding officer the authority to declare a meeting private at his sole discretion. At a thirty-minute press conference conducted by Michael Cutajar, Executive Secretary of the FCCC, and Chen Chimutengwende, President of the Conference of the Parties, the press was spoon-fed doom-and-gloom. In response to a question by CBS Radio, Cutajar said that he expected the outcome of the meeting to be acceptance of the most stringent proposal for a legally binding protocol -- a 20% reduction of carbon dioxide emissions in developed countries. Chimutengwende said he expected a "stronger commitment from developed nations and more assistance with housing, education, and development" for developing nations. The process is designed to assure the outcome desired by the UN -- there are no votes! Decisions are made by "consensus." Consensus, according to Cutajar, is "very much up to the president." A plenary session was scheduled to "elect" officers to assist the president. Chimutengwende announced that he had a list of seven nominees. He read the names. Then he said: "in the interest of an efficient and orderly meeting, I propose that they be elected by acclamation." He then slammed the gavel down and said: "I declare them elected!" He then announced that about 80 ministers (cabinet level or higher) were expected to attend the Ministerial Conference, and that he had decided to limit attendance at the meeting to ministers only. Delegates from Russia, Korea, Iran, Bangladesh, and the U.S., objected. There was no debate, no discussion. The president announced the last speaker on the subject and moved to the next item on the agenda. The delegate from Venezuela asked that the reports of the various working groups (which met in private sessions without benefit of the press) be presented in writing to avoid any ambiguities. The president said he had decided to hear oral reports which would then be summarized by the staff. The meetings that are open to the public are little more than an exercise to legitimize a previously determined outcome or to propagandize the delegates with speeches. Elizabeth Dowdswell, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), told the delegates: "We have acknowledged that the climate is at risk and we are the cause." She

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said UNEP was integrating their climate, ozone, and biodiversity programs into their new "Globalization Program" which would coordinate trade, environment, and law activities. In his welcoming speech, Claude Agee, Geneva's Environmental Minister, said: "Man must give up some of his freedoms. Wealth must be distributed more equitably." And, that man must develop an "environment of the soul," which he defined to be a new "earth ethic" to preserve and protect the environment. The day following the Ministerial Meeting, President Chimutengwende presented a draft of the Ministerial Declaration. The document was prepared by the UN staff and a group he referred to as "Friends of the Chair." The draft document was presented at the noon recess with an announcement that it would be considered after lunch. When the plenary reconvened after lunch, the president said that some delegates had told him the document went too far, and that others had said it did not go far enough. "Therefore," he said, "it must be about right. It is decided!" With that, he slammed his gavel down and proceeded to the next item of business. After the fact, the president allowed four speakers on the subject of the Ministerial Declaration. Australia disassociated its delegation from the document, and received an enthusiastic ovation. America strongly endorsed the document, and received an enthusiastic ovation. Saudi Arabia said that in view of the response to both sides of the issue, it was apparent to all that no consensus had been reached, and then, speaking for 14 countries, proceeded to disassociate those delegations from both the process and the document. The last speaker, from a small island state, said that while the developed nations were arguing over fine points of procedure his country was sinking into the ocean because developed countries couldn't curtail their appetite for consumer goods.

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(196 September, 1996)

Global warming and NGOs By Henry Lamb Non-government organizations (NGOs) are essential to the success of the UN agenda. At the climate change meetings in Geneva last month, 91 NGOs were officially accredited to "observe" the proceedings. Three of the NGOs could be described as representative of industry; the balance represented Green Advocacy Groups (GAGs). Many of the NGOs were coalitions such as the Climate Action Network (CAN) whose delegates included the Sierra Club, W. Alton Jones Foundation, and the Center for Environmental Law. The Nature Conservancy; the Environmental Defense Fund; the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN); the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF); and the World Resources Institute (WRI) were among the other NGOs present. Accredited NGOs have rights at the UN that are not available to the press. The International Institute for Sustainable Development, for example, has access to meetings from which the press is barred. During the Geneva meetings, they published "Earth Negotiations Bulletin," a summary of significant events during the conference. Another Conference Publication, called ECO, has been published at every UN conference since 1972 by NGOs. The Geneva issues were published by a team of 17 members of the Climate Action Network. It is an unabashed propaganda piece which advocates prompt, stringent enforcement of the Climate Change Convention and ridicules the treaty's opponents. For example, one report says: "The U.S. used the microphone for five minutes but contributed nothing." Another report included this: "USA made an interminably long intervention which this correspondent is unable to report because she nodded off at an early stage." By contrast, the same report said: "Guatemala made an admirably concise statement calling for a protocol containing legally-binding commitments for Annex I (developed) countries." Greenpeace held a briefing for the delegates and the press during which they called for a reduction of carbon dioxide to a level 20% below 1990 levels in developed countries. They claimed that without such a reduction, the rate of global warming would be greater than any seen in the last 10,000 years; there would be reductions in biodiversity, and in food production. Their arguments are based on the same computer models which have been corrected downward three times in the last six years, and which are not supported by the last 100 years of scientific measurements of the actual temperature record. Not to be outdone, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) staged its own briefing for delegates and the press to present its most recent study. The study claims that "climate change will alter natural vegetation, wildlife habitat, crop-growing seasons, and the distribution of pests and diseases throughout Southern Africa." The study closely parallels a similar report released by the World Health Organization, and blames all the problems on developed countries. The study

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concludes: "The whole of Africa contributes around 7% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. It is both ironic and tragic that Africa should suffer such devastating effects as a result of other countries' activities." Not only the delegates, but perhaps more importantly, the press, is influenced by the unrelenting, coordinated propaganda of the NGOs. These stories are broadcast as gospel and few reporters have the inclination to ask for substantiating science or question the politically-correct agenda. It is no coincidence that the weekend the delegates arrived in Geneva, a local news magazine published a major article claiming that: "Global warming is no longer tomorrow's worry. High up in the Swiss Alps, you can actually see it happening. Now the ice is melting, and the consequences for Switzerland and far beyond are catastrophic." The Global Commons Institute staged a seminar entitled "Climate Change and Global Governance." The two-hour session outlined what was described as the only way to stop global warming: restructuring the UN to oversee and regulate "global governance." The specific recommendations followed the plans published by the UN-funded Commission on Global Governance report entitled Our Global Neighborhood, released last fall, calling for an end to the veto power and the permanent member status on the Security Council, a standing UN army, and giving the UN Trusteeship Council authority over the global commons. The Natural Resources Defense Council held a seminar which was the second Preparatory Committee meeting of the International Car Summit. This will be an international event designed to present a plan for removing fossil-fuel burning vehicles from the human experience -- the next generation of personal transportation. Ownership fees, mileage fees, fuel taxes, mileage and weight standards, and a host of other plans are in the making to force people out of automobiles and into alternative transportation. NGOs, with the funding and authority of the UN, constitute an army of foot soldiers marching in every community to save the planet from imaginary destruction.

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(197 October, 1996)

Propaganda Parade: Global Warming By Henry Lamb Timothy Wirth, Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs, has organized a dog-and-pony show that is traveling around the country at tax payers' expense, to convince Americans that the world is really on the brink of oblivion, and that immediate, draconian action is necessary to avoid all manner of imagined havoc. The Wirth circus was in Austin, Texas on August 13, and in Chapel Hill, North Carolina on September 19, to promote the Clinton-Gore decision to support legally binding agreements to reduce energy consumption in America. This same Timothy Wirth assured an audience at Rockefeller University on March 3, 1995, that the U.S. would not adopt a policy of legally binding agreements. Wirth seems to be all over the place, saying whatever is necessary, to advance the global agenda toward global governance. In his 1993 book, Science Under Siege, Michael Fumento quotes Timothy Wirth: "We've got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing, in terms of economic policy and environmental policy." Dr. Stephen Schneider, perhaps the most frequently-quoted scientist on global warming issues, told Discover magazine in 1989: "To get some broad-based support, to capture the public's imagination...entails getting loads of media coverage. So, we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of doubts we may have....Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." (In 1977, this same Stephen Schneider was warning of a new ice age as evidenced by declining global temperatures.) Timothy Wirth is telling Americans that the science supporting global warming claims is "convincing and compelling." More than 100 climatologists from around the world say that the science is neither convincing nor compelling. In a letter dated August 23, 1996, signed by five of those scientists, Mr. Wirth is called on the carpet for telling the Rockefeller University audience one thing, and then doing just the opposite at the Geneva Conference on Climate Change. Wirth is also chastised for a State Department letter to the UN which urged UN officials to modify the text of the Second Assessment Report on Global Warming. The text was modified extensively - after the report was accepted by the scientists, but before it was printed for the public. The modifications removed references to doubts expressed by scientists - as prescribed by Dr. Stephen Schneider. Why are Timothy Wirth and the Clinton-Gore White House willing to distort science and spend tax dollars promoting global warming and an international agreement that will devastate the American economy?

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Global warming is one of the "scary scenarios" upon which the entire global agenda is based. If the global warming theory is invalidated, then Agenda 21 is invalidated and the science which underlies all the "scary scenarios" will be questioned. Proponents of global governance cannot let that happen. Literally billions of dollars are at stake, to say nothing of the power that accompanies the global agenda. The Global Environment Facility (GEF) has already invested $2.3 billion in global warming projects around the world. Much of the money is being spent on projects to brainwash children into believing the world is going to hell-in-a-handbasket, and that the UN agenda is the only salvation. Neither Wirth nor his UN cronies will debate the issue. Instead, they choose to discredit the dissenters. Wirth told a press conference in Geneva that the dissenters were "a couple of revisionist scientists" who were being paid by the energy industry. The fact is that the dissenters now number more than 100 scientists, some of whom served on the UN's scientific panel. The scientists are concerned, not only about the misrepresentation of the scientific findings on global warming, but also about the corruption of the scientific process. If the UN and the Clinton-Gore White House are willing to distort science on global warming, can they be believed on any other issue? As early as 1992, Richard Lindzen of MIT reported that research grants were being withdrawn from scientists whose research results were not supportive of the global warming theory. The U.S. is now spending in the neighborhood of $2 billion annually on global warming research. If Wirth discounts the research from the energy industry, research from the global warming industry should also be discounted. Global warming has become a multi-billion dollar industry. It no longer has anything to do with science nor with environmental protection. It is an industry built upon the fears of deliberately misinformed people who allow government to spend tax dollars on a global agenda that ultimately is designed to destroy individual freedom, private property rights, and national sovereignty.

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(198 October, 1996)

Propaganda Parade: Managed Markets By Henry Lamb Free enterprise and free markets may well be a myth already. If the UN has its way, free markets and free enterprise will be relegated to the ash heap of obsolescence. Throughout Agenda 21, and the report of the President's Council on Sustainable Development, references are made to "harnessing free market forces," and to "providing tax incentives and disincentives" in order to get industry to perform as government desires. In America, government already manages the markets to a very large extent. But what we have seen so far is nothing compared to what is in store. Mining, logging, and ranching are directly affected by the Endangered Species Act. Farming and development are directly affected by the wetlands policy. Land use -- anywhere in America -- is now subject to federal government approval. Industries of every stripe are now subject to an incredible maze of federal regulations. So tight and all pervasive is government control that the federal government now is confident that it can direct the market to achieve its social agenda. The genius of a free market is that demand forces supply. Demand is driven by better ideas and better products. America is a showplace of how better ideas have driven demand for better products which have created an industrial economy the likes of which the world has never known. The Clinton-Gore White House is now transforming that showplace into a replica of the managed markets that have failed time after time in other nations. The prime target is the energy industry. Government did not have to ban the horse and buggy. There was no corn-guzzler tax placed on Studebaker's Conestoga, to give Henry Ford's Model T an advantage. Ford's better idea was all that was necessary to launch a new era in personal transportation and in personal prosperity. There was no government tax placed on candles or whale oil; Edison's light bulb was sufficient to usher in a transformation of the energy industry. But the government is no longer willing to let the free market force a transition to alternative energies. A tiny handful of arrogant elites have decided that the world should no longer use fossil fuels. Instead, the world should be powered by "alternative energy." Alternative energy ranges from solar power to human muscle power - but does not include fossil or nuclear fuel. Dozens of taxing schemes have been proposed to make fossil fuel cost more than alternative fuels. The government, driven by the UN, seeks to shut down the coal and gas industry in order to advance the solar, photovoltaic, windmill, horse, and bicycle industries. When Timothy Wirth was asked how his proposed legally binding agreement to reduce carbon dioxide emissions would impact the American economy, he shrugged his shoulders and said "there will be some losers and some winners." He is wrong; there will be losers and there will be losers. If Wirth prevails in securing Senate ratification of the UN protocol to reduce carbon dioxide

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emissions, the price of fossil fuel energy will skyrocket during the transition period. Consumers will be forced to pay substantially higher prices for every product that relies upon electricity or petroleum in the production process. Energy for home and personal use will be prescribed by government and enforced through building permits and price-penalties for transportation. This obvious economic disaster doesn't matter to Wirth, Clinton, or Gore. They are hell-bent on implementing the UN agenda regardless of its consequences. If, and when, there is a real need to shift to alternative energy sources, the market will provide the way - if the market is free. Alternative energy, at its present level of development, is not a better idea. The moment alternative energy becomes better, cleaner, more efficient, or offers any real reason for its use, a free market would advance it. The government has chosen not to wait for the free market to act. The government is attempting to manage the market to force the acceptance of alternative energy sources by taxing conventional energy sources out of the market, or banning its use altogether. The government has already banned the use of freon and forced the use of more expensive substitutes. The government is managing markets, and is rapidly moving to manage virtually every aspect of human life.

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(199 October, 1996)

Propaganda Parade: Education By Henry Lamb Shortly after UNESCO was founded in November, 1945, Bertrand Russell wrote: "Every government that has been in control of education for a generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen...." Since 1942, the National Education Association (NEA) has supported the idea of a global board of education. For 50 years, UNESCO has worked to become that global board of education. Robert Muller, 30-year Deputy Secretary-General of the UN, basks in the title: "Father of Global Education." He is credited with the development of the "World Core Curriculum." The first goal of Muller's World Core Curriculum is to "promote growth of the group idea, so that group good, group understanding, group interrelations and group goodwill replace all limited, self-centered objectives, leading to group consciousness." The World Core Curriculum Manual says further: "The underlying philosophy upon which the Robert Muller School is based will be found in the teachings set forth in the books of Alice A. Bailey, by the Tibetan teacher, Djwhal Khul, published by Lucis Publishing Company...." Lucis Publishing was Lucifer Publishing until 1924, created expressly to advance the writings of Alice Bailey who is widely recognized as a founder of the "new age" spiritual movement. Lucis Trust was one of the first NGOs (non-government organizations) to be granted "Accredited" status by the UN. UN influence over American education was minuscule until the 1970s. The United Nations Environment Program, created in 1973, adopted global environmental education as one of its first projects. With the cooperation of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the World Wildlife Fund, and a host of environmental organizations such as the National Wildlife Federation, American schools were flooded with propaganda about the sanctity of wildlife and trees and the horror of chain saws, bulldozers, profit and corporations. The propaganda became institutionalized in textbooks, educational films and videos, and throughout the entertainment industry. School-age children have been thoroughly indoctrinated with green propaganda. The emergence of "Goals 2000" has taken the World Core Curriculum philosophy several steps further. Muller's "group goodwill" is expressed as "global citizens," and children are taught that nationalism is bad and globalism is good. Children are taught that individual achievement is bad and "equity" is good. Children are taught that corporations are bad and that government programs are good. Children are taught that the planet is at the brink of disaster and only regulations imposed by government can save it. A generation of Americans has now been educated under Muller's World Core Curriculum. Every graduating class releases a new batch of "globalists" into the work force, the schools, and into government. Many people born after 1960 really believe that government should be responsible for the well-being of individual citizens. Many people really believe that national governments are obsolete. Many people really believe that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are antiquated and should be updated to reflect the "new global realities."

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Many people see no problem with the School to Work Act, which essentially gives the government the authority to certify that a student has been "properly" educated. Students who do not have the certification will not be eligible for certain jobs. It gives the government the authority to direct students into prescribed curricula, rather than letting individual students and their parents make those decisions. It further empowers government to direct the lives of individuals - and many people really believe this to be progress. Many people see no problem with allowing U.S. soldiers to fight under the command of the UN; no problem with allowing the UN to send inspectors to observe the proprietary process and patented secrets of our chemical industry; no problem with allowing the UN to impose global taxes on American industry in order to redistribute and equalize the wealth in the world; no problem with the surrender of national sovereignty to global governance. These people have endured a generation of education under the control of the government. Government control is tightening; education has been transformed into propaganda designed to modify behavior to produce "global citizens." It is the government, working hand-in-hand with NGOs that is pushing the global agenda down the throats of American citizens. It is possible only because of the number of people who have now been brainwashed into believing the propaganda that now passes for education.

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(200 October, 1996)

Propaganda Parade: The New Earth Ethic By Henry Lamb Dissent is a wonderful device to deter despotism. As inconvenient as it may be, dissent prevents the majority from steam-rolling the minority and often softens a majority position into a better position for more people than would have been possible had the majority prevailed without dissent from the minority. James Madison, and his colleagues, recognized the value of dissent and provided for equal airing of conflicting views to be resolved by a vote in which all could see precisely how each representative voted. That process is called accountable representative democracy. When the people represented are displeased with the vote cast by their representative, they can hold their representatives accountable and replace them with new representatives. Dissent is a dilemma in the consensus process. There is no room for dissent. Dissent causes deviation from the predetermined course of action and can alter the outcome. Dissent cannot be tolerated within the consensus. Therefore, dissenters are discredited, excluded, and penalized. Consensus is the process by which decisions are made at the UN. Consensus is the process by which decisions should be made in America, according to the President's Council on Sustainable Development. Consensus is the process embraced by the new "Earth Ethic." Individualism is bad - collectivism is good; competition is bad - cooperation is good; personal responsibility is bad - government responsibility is good; honest debate resolved by accountable vote is bad - consensus is good - according to the new "earth ethic." Consensus, as practiced by the United Nations, is nothing more than camouflage for despotism. At the July meeting of the UN's Conference of the Parties to the Climate Change Treaty, a delegate from Venezuela spoke passionately of the need for subsidiary groups to present their report to the full conference in writing to avoid any ambiguities or distortions. The presiding officer, Chen Chimutengwende of Zimbabwe, listened to the request, and then announced that the reports would be presented orally, and then summarized by his staff. No vote, no discussion - just a ruling by the presiding officer. Intrigue deepens upon understanding that it is within the subsidiary groups that the real work is done. Selected delegates discuss whatever issue is on the agenda. No votes are ever taken. The meetings are private. That is, no press nor visitors are allowed. The presiding officer reports orally to the full conference whatever he wants to report as the result of the discussions. The presiding officer determines what the consensus of his group is. That report is then further refined by the staff of the presiding officer of the full conference before it is entered into the official record. It is this record that justifies the "consensus" determination. The Executive Secretary of the Conference told a press conference at Geneva that "Consensus is not unanimity; it is very much up to the President." There is no accountability. There is no minority report. There is no dissent. When dissenters go outside the process, they are immediately branded as troublemakers, as

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activists motivated by special or private interests. Dissenters are ridiculed and labeled as anti-government or anti-environment rabble-rousers. The new "earth ethic" has no patience for dissent. The new earth ethic empowers government with the responsibility of solving all the problems and imposes upon individuals the duty to support the government solution. Individuals who do not support the government's solution are seen to be irresponsible and unworthy of the benefits government can bestow. Dissenters are outcasts, and according to many UN documents, should be penalized. The new earth ethic is not new at all. It simply uses new language to disguise the collectivist, statist philosophy that has failed every nation victimized by it. The UN openly and actively practices this procedure under the guise of "consensus building." In America, the President's Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD), and departments throughout the Clinton-Gore administration, are also actively practicing this new "consensus" process for decision making. The PCSD final report is entitled Sustainable America: A New Consensus. There is no consensus on sustainable development. There is only the declaration that a consensus has been reached. It is on the strength of the declaration -- not of an actual consensus -- that public policy is being formulated. The vast majority of people who had no say in the development of the so-called consensus are nonetheless bound by the policies. The people have no recourse. There is no accountability. Who voted for the so-called consensus? No one. The so-called consensus was developed by appointees of President Clinton. Dissenters were excluded from the process and are branded with all the usual labels. Dissent is not tolerated in the new ethic of global governance.

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(201 November, 1996)

The Information Age By Henry Lamb Americans are spoiled. We take free speech for granted. We grew up in a culture that holds free speech, a free press, and the free flow of free information to be one of those unalienable rights no politician dares mess with. The principle of free speech is enshrined in the First Amendment -- the first priority in our Bill of Rights. But politicians are messing with free speech. The attack on free speech is not head-on as it is in socialist countries, and at the United Nations. There is no such thing as free speech in the socialist philosophy. In fact, to the socialist way of thinking, information is a privilege, granted or denied by government, to achieve the government's purposes. The United Nations Covenant on Human Rights 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...." In sharp contrast, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says: "Congress shall make no law...abridging freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." In recent years, politicians and bureaucrats have discovered a way to by-pass the First Amendment and impose "restrictions" on free speech in order to achieve the government's purposes. One such discovery, is the "consensus" process, pioneered ad nauseam by the United Nations. The American way is simple: anyone can propose a public policy idea. Anyone can speak for or against the ideas. Americans elect decision makers who ultimately decide by a public vote. Those who vote are directly accountable to the people who elected them. That is the American way. It's loud, rowdy, dirty, passionate, slow, and effective. The process produced the most powerful, most prosperous nation on earth. The consensus process restricts free speech, not by Congressional action, but by selective input. Equally important, the consensus process removes the decision makers from accountability. The decision makers are not elected, they are carefully chosen. The United Nations procedure is the procedure that is now followed in America. At the United Nations, no one is allowed to even attend the meetings unless they have been selected by the United Nations. The press is allowed to observe only selected meetings; the negotiating sessions are closed to the press. It's not hard to predict the outcome of a debate on policy when all the debaters have been hand picked. Increasingly, in America, the consensus process is permeating the decision-making process. The President's Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD), in its "We Believe" statements, says: "We need a new collaborative decision process that leads to better decisions; more rapid change; and more sensible use of human, natural, and financial resources in achieving our goals." The PCSD developed 154 action items that are now being implemented administratively. Public policy decisions have been made and are being implemented without the benefit of

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genuine public input, without public debate, without a public vote by elected decision makers. When an individual discovers he cannot get a permit to build a new home unless he agrees to situate his home as prescribed by government, use only materials approved by government, plant only the plants in his yard allowed by government, to whom can the homeowner redress his grievance? The building permit criteria is but one of the recommendations of the PCSD, developed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which threatens to withhold federal funds unless the criteria is adopted in the local community. To whom does the homeowner complain? Elected officials had nothing to do with the building permit criteria. Public policy is being developed in America on the basis of selective information restricted by government. Free speech has been abridged on public policy issues, not by Congress, but by a crafty process called consensus. There is virtually no accountability; affected individuals cannot discover where the policies originated, who is responsible for them, or how the policy can be overturned. Free speech, as envisioned in the First Amendment, is a deterrent to speedy decisions, and nearly always modifies the original proposal. "Our goals," described by the PCSD, would undoubtedly be modified were they subjected to the toss and tumble of free and open debate. Such refinement, inherent in the American process of public debate, is not the goal of the PCSD, nor of the United Nations.

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(202 November, 1996)

The Information Age: up close and personal By Henry Lamb About 60 reporters gathered in Salon III of the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, to meet Michael Zammit Cutajar, Executive Secretary of the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), and Chen Chimutengwende, President of the Conference of the Parties of the FCCC. Cutajar, tall, distinguished, middle-age, bureaucrat from top to bottom, welcomed the press, referred to the press-kits that had been distributed, and introduced Chen. Chen had entered the room five minutes after the scheduled start-time, accompanied by an entourage of 10 gentlemen who appeared to be recent graduates from the Million-Man-March, and one secretary who could have stepped directly from the cover of Ebony. He is a robust man in his early forties, the Minister of Environment and Tourism for Zimbabwe, obviously revelling in the prestige of his new position. He made a few comments about the urgency of taking immediate action to reverse human-induced global warming. After the opening remarks, there was time for only a few questions. A reporter asked why, in view of the controversy swirling around the scientific evidence, a vote had not been taken to measure the strength of the so-called scientific consensus about the existence of global warming? "Cutajar replied: "Consensus is not unanimity; it is very much up to the President!" That ended the press conference. Thirty minutes; no more. The information in the press kits was prepared by professionals, It was similar to a recruiting package a Chamber of Commerce might prepare for a prospective new business. The information was hard sell stuff: global warming had been proved by consensus of the best scientists in the world; the UN alone could provide the remedy through the new Protocol the Conference of the Parties was in the process of developing. It was clear from the start that the policy decision had already been determined by the UN officials. The purpose of the meeting was to get the decision written into international law and to present the law to the public as an essential measure necessary to save the planet from certain destruction. Dissent was not tolerated. Dissenters were ridiculed and discredited. More than a hundred world-renowned scientists issued a statement challenging the global warming consensus. Timothy Wirth, head of the official American delegation, (and co-conspirator with the UN bureaucracy) said: "I'm not going to let a couple of revisionist scientists rewrite what the rest of the world has decided." Cutajar implied that the dissenting scientists were on the payroll of the fossil fuel industry. Dissent did not delay, deter, or even make a dent in the consensus process. The negotiating sessions of the three subsidiary groups of the conference were all private. No press was allowed. In a general session that was opened to the press, a delegate from Venezuela made a passionate plea to have reports from the subsidiary groups be presented in writing to avoid any ambiguities. Chen, the presiding officer, listened to the plea and then announced that the reports would continue to be made orally, and that the oral report would be summarized by

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the UN staff for inclusion into the official record. The meetings where the delegates express their positions is private, presided over by a person hand picked by the conference president. No press is allowed. The presiding officer then makes his report orally in an open session where no objections or corrections are allowed. Then the report is summarized by staff and included as the official report, long after the delegates have gone home. There is no way for the world to know what the delegates actually said or did in their private meeting. There is no way of knowing how accurate the oral report, or the printed report may be. The official record can reflect whatever the UN staff wants it to reflect, and the world has no choice but to accept it. That's precisely how information is developed at the United Nations. That's precisely the reason the consensus process is used. There is neither free speech, nor free press. There is no free flow of free information. There is instead, a free flow of managed information, shaped to present only the information necessary to justify a previously determined policy position. Dissent is despised. The information age at the United Nations means an age when information is managed, not free. In America, the power brokers of government are taking a lesson from the United Nations. Increasingly, information is subject to government manipulation, management, and downright misrepresentation. The first principle of freedom -- free speech -- is being battered and bruised in America, and rapidly becoming a privilege, to be granted or denied by government, as it is at the United Nations.

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(203 November, 1996)

The Information Age: for your own protection By Henry Lamb Does the government need to protect us from information? Many say absolutely, then use the cliché that the government absolutely needs to protect us from someone who may scream "fire" in a crowded theater. "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech...." Constitutional purists contend that the First Amendment means exactly what it says. Others contend that government should protect citizens from pornography and from bomb-making instructions. Others believe the government should require television stations to air "educational" programming and assure that textbook material is factual. What is the appropriate role for government to play in the free flow of free information? Is it permissible under the First and Fourth Amendments for government to require automatic phone-tap capability on the telephone lines of every citizen in order to protect the public from potential criminals? Is it appropriate in a free society for government to prohibit the use of encryption schemes that cannot be decoded by government? Many people believe that these abridgments of free speech are justified in today's society regardless of the First and Fourth Amendment. Such a belief is dangerously close to the belief expressed in the United Nations Covenant on Human Rights: "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...." Such a belief is dangerously close to the principle embraced by Marxist-Leninist philosophy which recognizes that the control of information is essential to the advancement of the government agenda. America is moving rapidly toward a society in which information is controlled by government. Certain encryption programs have already been declared to be "munitions" and subjected to strict government control. Al Gore has proposed, and is fighting for laws to require any user of encrypted computer communications to provide the government with a "key" for unlocking the encryption code. The much-heralded telecommunications act requires telephone companies to provide equipment that will automatically tap into any telephone conversation that the government may choose to invade. Supporters say not to worry, citizens are still protected by the laws requiring a court order before use of the automatic system. The 900 citizens whose FBI files were trucked to the White House were protected by similar laws that prohibit government misbehavior. The debate comes to this: information has always been, and will always be subject to use, misuse, and abuse. Is society better off when information is unrestricted, and the responsibility for sorting out the usable information left to the individual, or is society better off when information is controlled by government in order to protect individuals from information that may be abusive or harmful?

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Unless individuals deliberately confront this decision, and take deliberate action to make their decision known to their neighbors and to their elected representatives, the First Amendment will be eroded bit-by-bit, and relegated to obsolescence. The federal government is actively attempting to gain control of information. In a communist country, control is taken by force. In America, control is being obtained, not by force, but by incremental acquiescence. Americans are sold on the idea that government must protect children from information on the Internet, that children must be protected from violence on TV, that children should see "educational" material. Americans then acquiesce to laws that give the government the power to control content on the Internet and control the content of television programming. Once the government has the power to control these important vehicles of communication, what is to prevent the government from expanding its protection to include protection from what it considers to be harmful religious or political information? There is no information more dangerous that information that has been screened and filtered to meet official government approval. The federal government has not yet achieved the ability to control information as completely as communist and socialist countries, but it is working diligently to influence the dissemination of information it deems to be appropriate while limiting, suppressing, or discrediting information it considers to be inappropriate. Nowhere is the evidence stronger than in the information that is disseminated about the environment.

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(204 November, 1996)

The Information Age: environmental propaganda By Henry Lamb What does the government have to do with the information that is produced about the environment? Most of the information from which Americans form their impressions about the environment comes from television, movies, school books, and material published by hundreds of environmental organizations. How does the government influence or control this information? Let us count the ways. During an 18-month period ending June 30, 1995, the Department of Interior awarded 1802 grants to 869 non-government organizations (NGOs) and individuals totalling $242,532,016. Virtually all of the money was given to organizations for the purpose of producing information about the environment that is acceptable to the government. This tactic allows the government to get information before the public that the government wants disseminated, but without the appearance of official government approved information. Turner Educational Services, Inc., received $61,225 for an "electronic field trip cablecast from Okefenokee to selected schools." The information these school kids received did not appear to be official government information, but it would not have been delivered to the schools had it not met the government's approval. The Keystone Center in Boulder Colorado received five awards during this grant cycle, to produce propaganda on biodiversity and ecosystem management. The information they produced became the basis for public policy within the government and is widely referenced as authoritative. It would not have been funded by the government, had the information not met the government's approval. This tactic is not new. The government gets the information it wants disseminated by paying people to produce it. Moreover, it prevents the dissemination of information that it deems inappropriate by withholding funding from individuals and organizations that may produce the wrong kind of information. Dr. Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology wrote in a 1992 article for eco·logic, that he was personally aware of scientists who lost their funding because their research data failed to support the global warming theory. Competition for research dollars is intense. Americans want to believe that such grants are awarded on the basis of scientific integrity, but in the real world, there is strong evidence to suggest that politics is a more important criterion. The federal government has taken effective steps to influence the content of television programming and is trying to control information on the Internet, ostensibly, to protect children from information that the government deems to be harmful. On the other hand, the government is providing children with information about the environment that is, at best, not supported by science, and at worst, outright lies. Is government-sanctioned propaganda any less harmful to children than commercially produced propaganda? Government involvement in the production, dissemination, or control of information in any way, shape or form, is hazardous to the welfare of every American. The information the government

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presents should be limited to statistical data and actual records of events -- all of which should be subject to independent scrutiny and examination by any American. The government should never attempt to influence the outcome of scientific research, nor fund the production of propaganda through non-government organizations. With each passing year, government acts more as if it is the omnipotent protector of, and provider for the people, rather than the hired servant of the people. Government has become an institution unto itself, controlled by people who use the government to advance a social agenda which they believe is best for everyone. That is not the function for which the American government was created. The American government was created to protect the right of every American to pursue his own agenda without the heavy hand of government holding him back. Information is the stuff from which ideas emerge, and from which decisions are made, and from which actions are taken. Information should represent all available knowledge and all available interpretations and points of view. Individuals must retain the responsibility for sorting through the information and making their own choices. If we allow information to become tainted, distorted, screened and filtered through processes devised by government, we will not only diminish our freedom, we will set this nation on a course through increasing social strife, worsening economic stagnation, and on toward inevitable collapse. The government's role in the production and dissemination of environmental propaganda is a major step toward government control of information.

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(205 December, 1996)

The War on Automobiles By Henry Lamb Al Gore said in his 1992 book, Earth in the Balance, that there should be an action plan, coordinated globally, to completely eliminate the internal-combustion engine, in the next 25 years. That plan is in the final stages of negotiation by the Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), meeting in Geneva, Switzerland in December. Delegates from more than 150 nations have agreed to adopt a legally binding international protocol that will effectively drive automobiles that use gasoline, off the highways. Trucks that run on diesel fuel simply will not run. Even lawn mowers that whisper tiny puffs of smoke - will not survive. These horrible inventions of greedy Americans emit carbon dioxide that causes global warming that causes glaciers to melt that causes islands to sink -- says the United Nations -- and therefore carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced by 50 to 70 percent to stabilize emissions at the 1990 level. An international law is now in the making to achieve that result. The final language of the protocol will be presented next year. Depending on the final language, developed nations will have eight years to meet the first reduction targets with even more stringent targets set for 2010 and 2020. According to Al Gore's plan, auto engines should be gone by 2017; according to the UN plan, they will be gone -- in America. The protocol will not apply to developing nations. Al Gore's appointees, namely Timothy Wirth and his staff, were in Geneva in July, and again in December promoting the legally binding protocol. While the State Department is pushing the UN agenda overseas, Al Gore's former employee, Carol Browner, now Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, is paving the road to implementation at home. The day before Thanksgiving, she announced new air quality standards for America. The plan will increase the number of non-attainment zones from 75 to 214. Non-attainment zones are geographical areas that fail to meet the air quality standards and are, therefore, subject to more severe restrictions which may be imposed administratively (without Congressional authorization, approval, or oversight). This declaration of war by the EPA on the American automobile was actually developed in May, 1994, but not released because of the pending mid-term election. When the Congress was swept by Republicans, the plan was packed away until Bill and Al worked their way back to a second term. Immediately after the election, the plan was retrieved, dusted off, and launched by EPA field commander Browner. Americans would never have known about the plan until they were attacked incrementally by its 39 components, except for the work of Congressman John Boehner (R-OH). He found the internal EPA memo, dated May 31, 1994, marked for internal discussion only, and made the document public. What a nightmare for automobile owners. A 50-cent per gallon tax here, a 25-cent per gallon

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premium there, here an ad valorem tax, there a carbon tax, every where a tax tax. That's right. On top of the federal per-gallon taxes, the EPA proposes to require states to match federal highway funds only with revenues derived from state gas taxes. The plan is nothing short of a declaration of war on automobiles, and incidentally, will produce an estimated $47 billion per year by the year 2000. The plan doesn't stop with taxes. New fuel efficiency standards will add an estimated $4,000 to the initial cost of a car. New emission tests, based on miles driven rather than on time, must be paid for by the vehicle owner, and will be priced based on the volume of greenhouse gases emitted. Cost estimates by the EPA range from zero for new high-efficiency (expensive) cars to "several hundred dollars" for old polluting jalopies. New fees based on road usage, miles driven, and even special "congestion" fees for driving in congested areas are among the soldiers standing at the ready, under the command of Carol Browner, in Al Gore's war against the automobile. These draconian measures -- and more -- are necessary to meet the legally-binding requirements of the protocol now being developed by the UN. Al's henchmen have been in Geneva fighting for the protocol so he can tell the American people that the war being waged by the EPA is required by the UN treaty. And he is sure to make it feel better by telling people that the sacrifice is necessary to prevent global warming.

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(206 December, 1996)

The War on Industry By Henry Lamb Automobiles are doomed -- at least those powered by internal combustion engines, thanks to the army of new regulations waiting in the wings to wage war on the car at the command of Al Gore. But automobiles are only one battlefield. Industry is the ultimate target. If a tombstone were erected for every 18-wheeler that falls under Albert's gorey sword, the truckers' "Arlington" would likely stretch from sea to shining sea. It will not be a sudden slaughter. Yes, truckers will have to pay the increasing price for fuels, inspections, congestion fees and all the rest. These costs will simply be added to freight bills which will be tacked on to the price paid by the eventual consumer. As will the increasing cost of electricity be added to the price paid by the consumer. As much as 80 percent of the electricity used in America is generated by fossil fuels. The cost of electricity can be expected to double, double again, and perhaps double again before the targets for emissions reductions, required by the climate change treaty and the eminent protocol, are reached. Al's war may be declared on the automobile and industry, but the victims are the everyday people who pay the bills. Most families already work more than 80 hours per week to make ends meet. Their auto expense is about to skyrocket. Their home electric bill will soon start its doubling act. Day care costs will increase to cover the increasing costs of the day care operator. Food costs -- that arrive at the super market by truck -- will increase. Junior's clothes will cost more. Houses, and virtually everything in them -- all manufactured with electricity and delivered with gasoline -- will take an ever bigger bite out of the income of every family. Families simply will be unable to maintain their standard of living. They will be forced to buy less, drive less, have less, and make-do longer with what they have. When people buy less, industry must produce less -- and lay off unnecessary workers. When factories produce less, it takes fewer trucks to haul the stuff factories produce. Slowly, at first, the trucker's "Arlington" will begin to grow. People who own and operate factories are not stupid. They already know that most of the world is beyond the reach of Al's war on industry and, in fact, not subject to the requirements of the climate change treaty. Rather than stay in the suburbs of Sacramento and suffer the relentless regulations of Al Gore's regime, why not move to South America or any of the other developing nations. People work for peanuts; governments roll out the red carpet; people are hungry for the stuff factories make -- and neither Al Gore nor Carol Browner will be there to harass them. The thunder in the skys over America will be caused by the stampede of industry crossing the bridge to the 21st century.

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What happens to America? Children who enter school before the year 2000 will graduate into a world with soaring unemployment, taxes that could easily reach 60 percent of personal income, and international obligations that require an ever higher tax rate to satisfy. The cost of living -- even at what is now considered to be at the edge of poverty -- will be unaffordable for many, if not most, workers. A vacation in the family van to Disneyworld -- out of the question. A drive across town to the mall -- a thing of the past for all but the very rich. This scenario is theoretical -- but quite probable. It cannot be more accurate because neither the U.S. government nor the UN has bothered to perform economic analyses to accurately identify the costs. Nevertheless, the U.S. has already committed to embrace the new international law. The costs on which this scenario is based are just beginning to emerge from independent economists around the world. The cost estimates must be based on assumptions since neither the emissions targets nor the time frame have been established. Two conclusions, however, can be inferred from the studies to date: (1) the costs will be astronomical to developed nations bound by the protocol, and (2) there is likely to be minuscule reduction of emissions, if any, because developing nations are not bound by the law and emissions will simply emerge from developing nations rather than from the devastated nations.

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(207 December, 1996)

Who's Financing the War? By Henry Lamb There are 161 nations that constitute the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), a.k.a. the "Climate Change Treaty," or the "Global Warming Treaty." The COP met in Geneva in July. It met again in Geneva in December. It will meet in Bonn, Germany in the spring, and again in Kyoto, Japan next December. Seventy-six percent (122 nations) of the member parties are entitled to send two delegates to the meetings at the expense of the UN. The cost to send these delegates to each meeting, according to a report issued by the UN in Geneva, ranges between $600,000 and $700,000. That means the UN is paying each of the 122 nations, approximately $10,000 per year to send delegates to the meetings. None of these delegates represent nations that are bound by the treaty's regulations. All the costs of the Conference of the Parties are supposed to be paid from contributions from all members levied by the UN according to a formula that ranges from .01% to 25% of the COP's total budget. The assessments are to be paid by January 1 each year. As of December 6, 1996, 111 members ( 69%) had paid nothing. Nevertheless, 82% of the total anticipated revenue had been received. The total budget for the year is $7,346,725, of which $6,055,869 was paid by 33 nations -- 25 of which are legally bound by the treaty. Only 8 nations that are not bound by the treaty have made any payment at all. Their total contribution amounts to $126,661. Does anyone see a problem here? The 34 nations whose national economies are subject to be devastated are footing the bill for travel expenses and 82% of the total cost of bringing the delegates together to formulate the regulations that promise to destroy the economies that generate the UN's revenue. Many of the 111 countries that have paid nothing are in line to receive the industries that will be driven out of the 34 developed countries by the new law. While greenhouse gas emissions are being reduced in the northern hemisphere, they will begin huffing and puffing from the new tailpipes and smokestacks that will blanket the southern hemisphere. Prosperity in America and the other developed nations will diminish rapidly while prosperity (and carbon emissions) flourish throughout the developing world. That's what the UN calls "equity." That's what is meant by the UN pledge to "...ensure that all people equally share the benefits of the earth's resources." The method chosen by the UN is to pay delegates to create an international law that takes the benefits away from the people who earned them and give the benefits to those who have not. It is the UN itself, however, that receives the greatest benefit. It is the UN that creates the law, oversees its implementation, enforces its mandates, and ultimately will control the flow of prosperity as it flows from the developed nations to those that even now are licking their chops. The UN is no longer the General Assembly and the Security Council comprised of official delegates appointed by member states. That may be the image portrayed on the nightly news,

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but it is wrong. The UN, in actuality, is a vast and burgeoning bureaucracy -- similar in many ways to the bureaucracy of the former Soviet Union -- consisting of more than 130 organizations and agencies, each with its own budget and agenda, working to implement a well-coordinated plan to restructure the social order of the planet. The plan is called Agenda 21, adopted by the heads of state from more than 100 nations in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Agenda 21 is the destination that lies across the bridge that Al Gore and Bill Clinton are building to the 21st century.

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(208 December, 1996)

Is There A Better Way? By Henry Lamb Of course there is a better way. The only lasting way to elevate prosperity in developing countries and solve the inevitable problems that will be confronted -- even the problem of global warming, should it ever really occur -- is to build upon the experience demonstrated by the nations that have achieved relative prosperity. America has certainly led the way. The fundamental principles that underlie the great American success story are not difficult to discern. They are, however, difficult to achieve and even more difficult to maintain. The principles on which America was built include individual freedom; personal responsibility; private property; and limited government empowered by the governed. Simple, straight-forward, unfailing, and under constant attack. Two world wars were unable to bring down the nation built on these principles. The current attackers disavow bombs and bullets. Instead, the weapons of choice are deceit, propaganda, treaties, and eventually triumph. Unsuccessful in previous efforts to overpower us to take our possessions and control our lives, the new enemy's strategy is to persuade us to give up our possessions voluntarily -- and then control our lives. The principles of individual freedom and personal responsibility are being systematically replaced by the concept that the good of the community is more important than the needs and desires of the individual. And that in exchange for self-denial for the benefit of the community, the community will take care of the needs -- not the desires -- of the individual. The principle of private property is incompatible with the principle of "the good of the community." The community must control property to ensure that the needs of all members are met. Private property results in unequal distribution of the benefits produced by the community. And, of course, the community is represented by its government. The government must make the distribution of benefits, and its power to do so cannot be limited if the distribution of benefits -- and work -- are to be equal. These fundamental principles upon which America was built are being replaced little by little, every day, with little notice or concern by most Americans. Those who have noticed and are deeply concerned must not only reaffirm their faith in those fundamental principles, they must rethink the application of those principles to current realities. They must articulate anew the value and benefits of each of those principles and demonstrate convincingly why it is better to excel in every endeavor, rather than to simply "get by." They must explain the personal benefit to be derived from taking demeaning work rather than to accept food stamps, even though eligible. For too many people, individual freedom is not worth the price of personal responsibility. We have created a culture that is too willing to take a subsidy when available, rather than to earn or create what we need. It is not the government that pays for the subsidy; government simply

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takes wealth from those who have earned or created it to give to those who have not. A far greater price is paid by those who choose the subsidy. Something-for-nothing is more addictive than cocaine and produces similar effects. It dulls the will and dims the mind. Something-for-nothing destroys the need to try, the opportunity to fail, and the joy of achievement. Nature requires us to feed ourselves. We come equipped with what we need to find and secure our food. It is the quest for what we need -- and what we want -- that triggers our imagination. It is our mind -- standard original equipment on all models -- which creates pictures of possible solutions to our needs and pathways to our wants. Failure is the university in which we hone our skills. The more we fail the closer we come to success. And when it comes as the result of our own vision, our own effort, our own achievement, it brings a rush higher than the Rocky Mountains, unmatched by any substance or subsidy. Like love, the feeling that accompanies achievement cannot be described; it must be experienced. A father cannot describe love to his son, but he can demonstrate it. Achievement brings joy to living and lessons to those we love. Something-for-nothing steals both. Individual freedom, personal responsibility, private property, and limited government are principles enshrined in our Constitution, which is perhaps, man's greatest achievement. Perhaps our greatest achievement will be simply to defend it, which is a powerful lesson for those we love.