As the old saying goes, “forewarned in forearmed”.

From the RIO20+ ICLEI meeting in Brazil:

To advance public action on global warming, participants attending the ICLEI World Congress admitted today that they are deliberately employing new terminology to misdirect opponents and gain acceptance of their efforts to reduce energy use and greenhouse gases. By utilizing terms like “sustainability” and “sustainable development,” the group wants to mask its objectives and disarm would-be critics who might otherwise oppose their agenda, ICLEI attendees confided with CFACT representatives at the conference.

Huxley Lawler, Executive Coordinator of Environment and Climate Change of the Gold Coast City Council in Australia (an ICLEI member), told CFACT Executive Director Craig Rucker bluntly that “we don’t use the term climate change anymore. It’s sustainable development.”[emphasis CAJ]  Rucker and CFACT staffer Abdul Kamara confirmed this in conversations with other delegates, including Paul Chambers, a Sustainability Manager for the Auckland Council in New Zealand. Chambers said it is important to use inexact environment protection terminology when dealing with conservative governments, like the one he says currently heads his nation.

(snip)

“Thinking they can speak candidly on their home turf, ICLEI speakers reveal an unworkable economic agenda,” said CFACT President David Rothbard. “ICLEI’s bait and switch – substituting ‘sustainable development’ for ‘climate change’ – is shameless and deceptive. People need to understand ICLEI’s real agenda, before it cons other local governments into joining. ICLEI is weaving a crafty spider’s web that will entangle communities before they realize how its restrictive rules will kill jobs and reduce freedoms and living standards.”

For a quick peak at the agenda outlined at RIO+20:

“Rio+20′s ‘Future We Want’ document is chock full of troubling policy proposals,” said David Rothbard, president of CFACT, the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow.

According to CFACT and the U.N. executive summary, the Rio+20 agreement will include:

• Spending $ billions to achieve 80% CO2 emissions reductions by 2050;
• Enforceable worldwide environmental regulations;
• A global currency;
• A “sustainable diet” for all humans;
• Population control at “sustainable levels;” and
• Moving most people to cities, allowing half of the U.S. to revert back to “wildlands.”

“There are many more ill-conceived proposals in the current draft and there are still worse things being pushed behind closed doors by bureaucrats and pressure groups,” Rothbard said.

Here’s are examples of how the above goals are stated in the Future We Want vision statement:

Example 1:

4. We recognize that poverty eradication, changing unsustainable and promoting sustainable patterns of consumption  and production, and protecting and managing the natural resource base of economic and social development are the overarching objectives of and essential requirements for sustainable development. We also reaffirm the need to achieve sustainable development  by: promoting sustained, inclusive and equitable economic growth, creating greater opportunities for all, reducing inequalities, raising basic standards of living; fostering equitable social development and inclusion; and promoting integrated and sustainable management of natural resources and ecosystems that supports inter alia economic, social and human development while facilitating ecosystem conservation, regeneration and restoration and resilience in the face of new and emerging challenges

or try example #2:

6. We recognize that people are at the center of sustainable development and in this regard, we strive for a world which is just, equitable and inclusive, and we commit to work together to promote sustained and inclusive economic growth, social development, environmental protection and thereby to benefit all

Note the differences between the stated goals included in the agenda outline and the sugar-coated rhetoric included in the vision statement that is used to conceal those goals from the general public?

Now that ICLEI and their friends are having to change course a bit, maybe it’s time for Conservatives to put “forewarned is forearmed” into action…arming ourselves against the global-wide efforts to control our economy, reduce our freedoms, and waste taxpayer-contributed public funds.

For more information about sustainability initiatives, visit the ICLEI website.