Help, there’s an ICLEI in my backyard! (Part Two)

The wolf in sheep’s clothing in Ontario

In Part One we tried to understand why useless and destructive industrial wind turbines continue to be forced on unwilling communities in rural Ontario. The Government of Ontario seems to be in the grip of powerful unelected, unaccountable interests that makes it care little for the democratic process, the welfare of the people or the health of the economy.

We discussed how Agenda 21/Sustainable Development, devised by the United Nations, is a plan to inventory and control everything and everyone on the planet. The rationale for the plan is the phoney prognostication of catastrophic climate change brought about by supposed man-made global warming. The leading promoter of this massive doom-and-gloom scenario is the UN’s IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). As James Delingpole put it in his must-read book Watermelons:

…the ‘evidence’ that has been provided for us by the sources of supposed authority (our political leaders, the media, the scientists…) is so corrupt as to be meaningless.

In 1992, Canada was one of the 179 countries to “surrender their sovereignty”, as Delingpole writes, “by signing up to perhaps the most far-reaching and constrictive code of environmentally correct practice in the history of the world …” He describes Agenda 21/Sustainable Development as “a document right up there in significance with the Declaration of Independence and the Magna Carta (though with exactly the opposite effects).” He explains that Agenda 21 is a wolf in sheep’s clothing:

…it contains no legally binding obligations. But then, it doesn’t need to, for its apparently voluntary codes can be enforced – and are regularly enforced – via a mechanism over which sovereign governments have little control anyway: the vast, labyrinthine, democratically unaccountable behemoth that is the United Nations.

Delingpole explains further:

…the apparently ‘voluntary’ codes are enforced in such a way as to pass unnoticed by those outside the system. Those within the system include politicians…UN technocrats, green activists and environmental NGOs. Those outside the system are people like you and me. We don’t know how Agenda 21 works because we are not meant to know.

Delingpole quotes from a 1998 UN discussion paper that suggests how best to keep us in the dark:

This segment of our society who fear ‘one-world government’…would actively work to defeat any elected official who joined ‘the conspiracy’…So, we call our process something else, such as comprehensive planning, growth management, or smart growth.

So there you have it: an agenda, rationalized by a fake planetary emergency, that easily crosses sovereignty lines, and that is deployed and enforced by an unelected, unaccountable body using “lies, deception and a form of Orwellian Newspeak” to hide its true purpose and actions.

Agenda 21 at the local level: “And there ain’t nothing you can do about it”

In Part One we saw how unelected, unaccountable environmental NGOs played a prominent and proud role in creating Ontario’s undemocratic Green Energy Act in 2009. Their malignant influence has not waned since then. Read Parker Gallant’s exposé of who really sets Ontario’s energy policies.

At the local level, things are no better.

As James Delingpole explains in Watermelons, Agenda 21/Sustainable Development is enforced at the local level in small, seemingly unstoppable increments through ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability, “the UN-funded pressure group responsible for promoting Agenda 21”. First, local environmental activists form a lobby group, and urge the local councils to sign up with ICLEI to “become part of ICLEI’s network of local governments working together to advance sustainability“. (See the list of ICLEI Canada members here.)

Delingpole describes what happens next:

ICLEI bestows accolades on the local government…for its efforts at advancing the valuable cause of sustainable government. In turn, the local government entity can then boast about its achievements in publicity handouts, showing voters how sensitive and caring it is. These ratings also make it far more likely that the local council will receive grants and/or other financial inducements from any number of UN or…government-sponsored initiatives. In return…the local council feels honour-bound to promote the ‘sustainability’ agenda it has committed to…

He adds: “And there ain’t nothing you can do about it.”

Freedom Advocates lists some of the consequences:

While some of these policies sound good on the surface, they result in consequences such as: high-density housing scams…open space where access is not allowed; government “partnering” with favored private businesses and non-profit agencies using your tax money…undermining Constitutional administration of government; managed control over your life; mismanagement of public utilities; prohibitions on natural resource management leading to increased fire hazards, lack of water, and private property restrictions; increased taxes, fees, regulations and restrictions.

What’s in a word: sustainability 

So, is ICLEI or an ICLEI-based mindset or activity operating in your local community? Even if your town is not a direct member of ICLEI, it is subscribing to ICLEI indirectly by virtue of membership in the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, itself an ICLEI member.

Sustainability is hiding in plain sight everywhere in your community. To see it, all you have to do is conduct an online search for the terms ‘sustainable development’ or ‘sustainability’ on the websites of your local governments, schools, colleges and universities, community centres, non-profit and charitable organizations, foundations and institutes. Chances are you will find countless examples of that word popping up, either in the names of organizations, or committees, curricula, programs, funding, mission statements, planning documents, recommendations and reports, official pledges, policies, bylaws, rules, regulations and other legislation. As Delingpole writes:

You thought ‘sustainability’ meant desirable, manageable life-goals…Sustainable Development sounds like a good thing…but in fact its underlying philosophy has much more to do with taxation, regulation and control.

ICLEI at work in your town

The 2011 recommendation from the Town of Milton’s Director of Planning and Development clearly shows the straight-line connection from the origins of the concept of sustainability (which eventually gave birth to Agenda 21), to the automatic infiltration of the concept into municipal governance, to the required implementation of the concept in order to qualify for funding and incentives (emphasis added):

Town of Milton staff is developing a Sustainability Plan for the Town that will be adopted as an amendment to the Official Plan. This plan will ensure the Town meets the requirements under the Agreement for the Transfer of Federal Gas Tax Revenues and also allows the Town more freedom when applying for funding and incentives.

As Mayor and Council may be aware, the word sustainable, and the associated implications, has become a permanent part of planning within a municipality. The Bruntland Commission coined the most often used definition for the term and states that sustainable development is that which “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

Sustainability initiatives within municipalities can be found in all areas; from policy creation, to new developments, to redevelopment within a built area, as well as in operations and programs. Creating an overall plan to guide these activities has become an integral part of entrenching sustainability in the corporate municipal culture.

Conditions surrounding the Federal Gas Tax have further provided motivation for plan development. An Agreement for the Transfer of Federal Gas Tax Revenues under the New Deal for Cities and Communities allows municipalities to tailor funding to suit local requirements. Section 8.2 of the Municipal Funding Agreement (MFA) requires that, over the life of the Agreement, municipalities develop or enhance an Integrated Community Sustainability Plan (ICSP).

In 2010, The Town of the Blue Mountains published a gorgeous, glossy 126-page book called The Blue Mountains Sustainability Path, wherein the fine print says that its preparation was carried out “with assistance from the Green Municipal Fund, a fund financed by the Government of Canada and administered by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities”. The cover, however, proclaims that the book was “created by the people of the Blue Mountains and their friends”. This makes it look as if the voters had full knowledge, input, buy-in, or agreement with the contents of the document. This may not have been exactly the case.

On page 5, the book describes how The Town of the Blue Mountains created its ‘sustainable path’. With funding from the previously mentioned Federation of Canadian Municipalities, it started by having ‘Community Partners’ adopt the same definition of sustainability which spawned Agenda 21, the identical one used by the Town of Milton above. Then the Community Partners formed a Sustainable Path Implementation Steering Committee (ISC) to which they also elected a few members of the public (who must show fealty and “formally declare support for the implementation of The Sustainable Path by signing and submitting an Implementation Declaration”). The terms of reference say the ISC is not a committee of the Town, and that “The Town of the Blue Mountains acts as Stewards of the Plan.” Community collaboration and agreement to the plan are thus rationalized. No municipal voting or referendum on the overall direction or commitments required. It’s likely that most of the communities across Ontario and Canada have employed similar procedures for developing and implementing Agenda 21-inspired “sustainability paths”, guided by ICLEI’s boilerplate solutions and action plans.

ICLEI Canada provides “toolkits” for every conceivable sustainability initiative:

Research has identified a set of tools to promote behavior change: obtaining commitments, using prompts, utilizing social norms, designing effective communications, providing incentives, and removing external barriers. Not all tools need to be utilized in any one campaign, but note that they are most effective when used in combination with each other.

ICLEI’s publication Leadership & Legacy: Handbook for Local Elected Officials on Climate Change is instructive, to say the least. It’s the perfect propaganda and brainwashing document on the subject of (debunked) man-made global warming and catastrophic climate change for the unsuspecting or opportunistic elected official, paid for by your tax money: “This resource was made possible thanks to the generous support of Natural Resources Canada: Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Division.”

Another 111-page ICLEI document, made possible again “thanks to the generous support of Natural Resources Canada: Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Division”, i.e. your tax money, is Having the Climate Conversation: Strategies for Local Government. If you believe that the notion of man-made global warming is a hoax, and that there is no catastrophic planetary climate change emergency, and that it has all been concocted for nefarious power-grab reasons, and that the IPCC’s lies and data fakery have spawned a huge and lucrative climate change/carbon trading/alternative energy industry, then this handbook makes for very depressing reading indeed. ICLEI provides every communication trick and rationale known to man to help public officials continue to maintain the fiction. For example, on page 52, we read:

Extreme weather events can provide very effective teachable moments where climate change messages become highly relevant to the experiences of an audience. Whether experienced first- hand or remotely in other areas of the world, these events tend to be vivid and dramatic. They also tend to receive considerable attention in the press, which can be used to spark interest and trigger dialogue. Such events can include floods, heat waves, ice and wind storms, or forest fires. These events make it easier to envision a warmer, wetter, and more extreme world, and to anticipate some of the environmental and economic impacts that such a future would bring. As such, extreme events can be effective catalysts for changing behaviour and initiating a dialogue on the need for more adaptive and resilient communities.

Perhaps the most revealing section starts on page 94, in the section called Communication Challenges, especially Challenge #4-Climate Change Uncertainty, on page 99.

Three main areas of uncertainty exist when making climate change projections: The lack of complete knowledge of how climate works; natural variability in the climate system; and the inability to predict what humans will do in the future that has impacts on the climate.

Despite these admissions, the document nevertheless proceeds to explain the IPCC’s ludicrously contorted “Confidence Terminology” and “Degree of confidence in being correct” and its “Likelihood Terminology” and “Likelihood of the occurrence/outcome”, ratings that are somehow supposed to make IPCC predictions believable. You have to see the charts to understand how absolutely feeble and puerile this stuff is, and yet government and the media routinely and dutifully repeat the IPCC’s fabricated, bogus “Extremely likely” rating it has given to its latest fraudulent claims.

The final “Communication Challenge” is odious in its use of language: “Challenge #5-Dealing with skeptics and deniers.” That would be us, and good luck with that!

It ain’t over ’til it’s over

James Delingpole wrote in Watermelons, “And there ain’t nothing you can do about it” but the State of Alabama, for one, did do something:

Alabama became the first state to adopt a tough law protecting private property and due process by prohibiting any government involvement with or participation in a controversial United Nations scheme known as Agenda 21.

Resistance is not futile. Our American neighbours have some advice on how to fight back. The best one is that knowledge is power. Get informed, and become powerful. But you won’t find out much about any of this from the majority of the mainstream media, who take man-made global warming and catastrophic climate change as a given. Do your own research about Agenda 21/Sustainable Development, ICLEI, the IPCC, “green” legislation, “green” NGOs, Ontario’s Green Energy Act. Monitor your local, provincial and federal governments and follow the money.