A partially tax-funded Danish artist with “Art in Defense of Humanism” was there as well, presenting a series of exhibits including a decent-sized replica of the Statue of Liberty with the words “Freedom to Pollute” written across it. Another piece he was showing off featured a young pregnant girl on a crucifix, which he said was a protest against the Catholic Church for its opposition to sex education, contraception, pre-marital sex, abortion, and other teachings.
“We must get a lot of tax on oil,” he told TNA in an interview, proposing $40 per gallon gasoline without really knowing what to do about the consequences such measures would have on the poor. After boasting of taking money from capitalists to use against them, he also said there was no “right to consume” and the standard of living in the West should decline dramatically — a common sentiment among the “people” at the tax-funded summit.
Greenpeace was at the “People’s Summit” as well, offering presentations about mining and logging. The next day, however, we caught up with Icelandic investigative journalist Magnus Gudmundsson, who has studied environmental campaigns and their effects for more than two decades. His take on Greenpeace and other environmental groups was a real eye-opener.
According to Gudmundsson, many of the mega-“Green” groups use blatant deception. One example in particular that he spoke about was an allegedly bogus propaganda video created by Greenpeace purporting to show seal hunters in the far North. The video, he said, citing multiple experts, was staged for the camera. But the tragic effects on the some of the world’s most vulnerable people were all too real.
“Communities have been destroyed economically and socially,” Gudmundsson explained, pointing to Native American villages in the Arctic that had been completely devastated by “green” deception campaigns. “It brings in a lot of money” for the organizations, he said about the propaganda schemes. But the results are generally horror and destruction for the affected communities. More than 100 people out of less than 1,000 in just one village he visited committed suicide following a deceptive propaganda campaign to stop their traditional seal hunting.
“Communities have suffered incredibly, all in the name of saving the Earth,” Gudmundsson told TNA, wondering if Rio+20 was part of the same pattern. “Of course, it has no impact on saving the Earth, but a big impact on their wallets.”
Ironically, the vicious anti-seal hunting campaign actually ended up hurting the environment, he noted: The increase in seals caused a drop in the supply of fish, which threw the traditional ecosystem off balance. The local human community was virtually destroyed. And the seals were never even endangered in the first place.
Despite the stories of lies and destruction, however, many of the activists at Rio+20 were no doubt sincere. TNA interviewed some young Brazilians wearing funny-looking pig costumes, for example, who were passionately representing “Rio+Veg.” The swine-suit-clad trio was very friendly as they explained the environmental benefits of vegetarianism. However, their mission at the conference — lobbying governments and the UN to curtail meat consumption — was typical of the NGOs’ mindset: coercive power must be used to reform and guide humanity.
As the whole conference came to a close, another almost certainly well-intentioned activist spoke to TNA as well. Organizing Partner Kiara Worth representing the UN sustainability commission’s Major Group for Children and Youth, was supposed to read a short statement on behalf of so-called “civil society” to the delegates.
But according to the young South African activist, she was told that there was no time — “essentially meaning that civil society has no voice here at the conference,” she said, clearly upset, as representatives of governments and assorted dictatorships shuffled by with smiles on their faces. So, instead of reading the speech to the planet’s “sustainability” dignitaries, she read it to TNA and answered a few questions.
“If these sheets of paper are our common future, then you have sold our fate and subsidized our common destruction,” she said of the final UN agreement, expressing the disappointment many “stakeholders” felt with a document which did not technically mandate anything new. “We have one planet. Our being, our thinking, and our action should not be constrained by national boundaries, but by planetary ones. You failed to liberate yourselves from national and corporate self-interest.”
Critics of the UN say the NGO activists present at the international conferences — no matter how sincere or well-intentioned — serve a crucial function under the guise of representing “society.” The role of those groups and their criticisms about the UN’s alleged failure to do enough help to advance the global institution’s agenda, partly by making the sweeping planetary agreements seem moderate by comparison.
This allows the cheerleading media to create a false paradigm for their audiences where the only critics seem to be people who wanted more government, more UN, and more of the global agenda. Then, opponents of the whole agenda itself can be glossed over as the debate is framed in terms of advancing the UN’s goals, or, on the other side advancing them even faster to please “civil society.”
Opponents of the environmental agenda have called for an end to all taxpayer subsidies for NGOs, calling the government-funded groups “AstroTurf” designed to apply pressure from below and create the impression of popular support for the UN schemes. Of course, not all of the organizations receive public funds, but many do, even amid an economic crisis that has left untold millions completely destitute.
A few NGOs were at Rio+20 actually promoting what seemed to be real solutions to real problems. The Brazilian Association for Sustainable Development (ABIDES), for example, gave a presentation explaining that true sustainability should mean protecting nature while lifting people out of poverty — and it should start at the local level.
“The UN is speaking at a level that is not close to reality,” said ABIDES President Everton Carvalho in an interview with TNA, noting that the real issues — increasing food production, developing infrastructure, creating jobs, and promoting economic growth — should be dealt with by locals who understand what is needed. “You have to solve the problems that are real, right now, for us.”
Other organizations with representatives at Rio+20 promoting market solutions, economic growth, private property, real science, and individual liberty included the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. However, such groups were a tiny, tiny minority — and they received virtually no establishment-press coverage. The vast majority of NGOs were busy calling on the UN and world governments to expand their powers under the guise of environmentalism, poverty, and more — exactly the opposite of what all available evidence shows can truly alleviate real problems. For those groups, though, the media cameras were always rolling.
Big Business Joins Forces With UN & World Governments
Despite the widely held misconception of Big Business and Big Government as being at odds with each other, many of the world’s top corporate chieftains played a central role throughout the UN conference. Many literally begged the global institution and its member governments for new regulations and more economic meddling.
“Businesses like regulation,” said General Electric Brazil CEO Adriana Machado during a World Business Council for Sustainable Business panel discussion, without mentioning, of course, how much the U.S.-based side of GE has benefited at taxpayer expense. “Regulation is necessary to show companies who want to get better on how to get there.” Apparently the market is just not good enough.
In an interview with TNA, Infosys co-chairman Senapathy “Kris” Gopalakrishnan, who also served as chief of an international coalition of companies known as “Business Action for Sustainable Development,” offered similar remarks on joining hands with government. “As we move forward we have to start thinking about some policy framework, including regulations,” he said, adding that businesses — which participated at Rio+20 in “record numbers” — should partner with “civil society” and governments to create rules. “It should be a public-private partnership in creating those regulations.”
Unilever Global Advocacy Director Thomas Lingard spoke approvingly of so-called “public-private partnerships,” too. In fact, he told TNA in an interview, his company is already working through the “Consumer Goods Forum” with some of its top competitors and assorted government agencies to move the “sustainable development” agenda along faster.
“We’re very excited that what started out as an industry initiative is now attracting interest from governments to develop into more of a public-private partnership,” he explained. The EU’s burgeoning anti-carbon regime, meanwhile, is a good start, and Unilever is now “pushing for the tightening of that scheme,” he noted.
While Lingard said the final UN agreement should have been stronger with more concrete deadlines, he was still optimistic about increasing the public-sector role in the economy. “We are very interested in governments creating the right frameworks,” he said, adding that coercive power could play a greater role in reducing carbon dioxide, among other perceived ills. “We are encouraging governments to go further and to be more ambitious in the policy frameworks they set.”
Countless CEOs and corporate leaders spoke of creating an “alliance” between government and enterprise — for “sustainability” purposes, of course. Indeed, there are now close to 10,000 corporations participating in the UN Global Compact, which aims to have businesses submit to the global body’s schemes and “catalyze actions in support of broader UN goals.”
Big tax-exempt foundations financed by some of the wealthiest people on Earth wholeheartedly agreed with the idea as well. “I think this is a moment of real transformational opportunity, that’s why we are here and why we are partnering with the UN Global Compact,” said Rockefeller Foundation President Judith Rodin at the Rio+20 Corporate Sustainability Forum. “Turning all this potential into kinetic and life-saving flows of capital will require a concerted effort by governments, by foundations, by large companies and investors committed to developing this space and harnessing it. That is our primary goal.”
Mega-companies at the summit — some of which have received massive taxpayer bailouts even in recent years — were actually so enthusiastic about the UN agenda that many of them offered billions for the cause. Bank of America, after receiving some $45 billion directly from American taxpayers, more than $100 billion in government loan guarantees, and even more in bailouts from the Federal Reserve, for example, pledged $50 billion to the agenda over the next decade. Many other top firms made similarly grandiose promises.
Governments and global bureaucrats were very pleased. UN chief Ban Ki-moon, for example, said he was upbeat about “these huge numbers” pouring into “sustainable development,” adding that they were “part of a growing global movement for change.” Now the global body must keep up the pressure. “Our job now is to create a critical mass, an irresistible momentum,” he concluded.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who appeared briefly at Rio+20 to give a speech and pledge billions of taxpayer funds, seemed particularly enthusiastic about prodding the “private” sector to get on board, too. “Sustainability won’t happen without business investment,” she said. “Governments alone cannot solve all the problems we face … That’s why we are so strongly in favor of partnerships.” It seemed like just about everybody at Rio+20 was strongly in favor of partnerships.
So-called “multilateral development banks” — taxpayer-backed transnational institutions working to finance the erosion of national sovereignty while putting populations in perpetual debt for their leaders’ extravagant borrowing — pledged around $175 billion for “sustainability” schemes as well. The World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank were both among the participants.
“We commit our institutions’ support for implementing the sustainable development for all agenda,” the banks said in a joint statement, noting that they would help harmonize and build policies around the world to advance the controversial “green” schemes. “We will work together to support global transformation in line with Rio+20 agreements.”
Apparently the public-private financing plan, as UN documents revealed before the summit even started, will use coercive power to “encourage” investors and companies into showering more resources on “sustainability” schemes. Everyone will benefit, it seemed — except, of course, the people paying the bills: taxpayers and consumers. Big Business and Big Government, though, will be lining their pockets.
The anti-tax competition “cartel” known as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development was excited about all of the progress. “Without the private sector it’s not going to work,” noted OECD Secretary General José-Ángel Gurria. “While governments put up the seed money, the big numbers come from the private sector.” Indeed.
One analyst, Ronald Bailey, who covered the summit for the libertarian Reason magazine, described the agenda of many Corporate Sustainability Forum participants as “green crony capitalism” — especially because virtually every panel touted so-called “public-private partnerships” as the way to achieve “sustainability.” In recent years especially, Americans have become all too familiar with what Bailey described. Think Solyndra.
Obviously, not every corporate action taken under the guise of “sustainability” is necessarily wrong. Some firms, for example, are simply seeking to reduce costs by lowering water or electricity consumption, which would, in theory, benefit consumers by making production cheaper. However, for most of the businesses at Rio+20, benefiting consumers was — at the very least — not the main objective.
“The reason lots and lots of businesses are in Rio is they’re rent-seeking,” Copenhagen Business School Professor Bjørn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, was quoted as saying. “They’re looking for huge potential subsidies for everything they produce.”
Other analysts described the open discussions on “collaboration” between business and governments as something even more alarming, pointing to Benito Mussolini’s widely quoted definition of fascism: “a merger of state and corporate power.” Some observers also used the term “corporatism” to describe the ever-deepening bonds between the private sector and coercive power.
Rio+20: Billions for the Cause, Paid for by You
In all, the Rio+20 summit collected more than half a trillion dollars’ worth of so-called “commitments” from governments, big businesses, and other key players. That is more than at any previous UN environmental summit — ever. Unfortunately for taxpayers and consumers, they will be paying the tab, either through higher taxes, higher prices, or a combination of the two.
The conference ended with a final agreement between virtually every national government in the world to continue working toward “sustainability” through “education,” population control, less economic freedom, implementation of past treaties, and more centralized power at the global level. Because there were no new binding measures, however, the agenda certainly did not leap forward as fast as the UN and its supporters had hoped.
Still, despite the apparent setbacks, the effort to control the human population — at the global level, with its own wealth, allegedly for its own benefit — is not dead yet. Instead, it slowly marches onward, more quietly now, but with an extra $500 billion in the war chest after Rio+20. All, of course, paid for by the people themselves — much like the extravagant conference.
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After three extravagant and costly days of trying to “save the world” at the United Nations Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development, the final outcomes were announced to the world. More than $500 billion was pledged to the so-called “sustainability” cause by governments, Big Business, and multilateral development banks. Also, a 50-page agreement bizarrely dubbed “The Future We Want” was adopted by virtually every national government on Earth. It was hardly everything UN supporters had sought, but progress was certainly made on moving their vision forward.
The agenda, of course, had been laid out in detail in UN documents and pre-conference gatherings long before the official summit even began. It was on full display throughout the confab, too. Essentially, the controversial global institution and its supporters hoped to concentrate even more power at the international level in a bid to re-shape human civilization from the top down. The justifications: environmental issues, poverty, gender inequality, and countless other real and perceived ills — though alleged concern for the poor officially became the primary excuse, displacing supposed fears over the environment that had long been the focal point.
On the UN wish list were planetary taxes and regulations; less prosperity and consumption; new educational paradigms to indoctrinate future generations; a shift in values, opinions, and lifestyles; population reduction; and much more. The creation of global currency was even considered to pay for it all. Of course, all of the goals would have necessarily come at the expense of national sovereignty, economic freedom, prosperity, individual liberty, private-property rights, and other cherished notions.
In the end, however, the grandiose vision of an all-powerful UN enforcing its controversial notions of “sustainability” did not come to fruition — at least not completely. Supporters of the agenda were largely disappointed, though some remained hopeful. Critics, on the other hand, celebrated the news, saying the UN and its dangerous scheming were now on the defensive. But there is more to the outcome than meets the eye.
The Commitments
In all, more than half of a trillion dollars in pledges and commitments from governments and companies were secured to advance the agenda — more than at any previous UN summit. The communist dictatorship ruling China, various European governments and institutions, the Obama administration, and other governments all signed up to put taxpayer money in the “sustainability” war chest.
A range of big corporations, more than a few that had recently been bailed out by taxpayers, pledged money too. After receiving well over $100 billion in bailouts, Bank of America, for example, promised to put up $50 billion for the cause. Some of the Communist Chinese regime’s state-owned “companies” also committed large sums.
With the hefty backing of “multilateral development banks” and the World Bank itself to the tune of around $175 billion, more private-sector money is expected to flow toward the agenda as firms see opportunities to benefit at taxpayer expense. “We commit our institutions’ support for implementing the sustainable development for all agenda,” the taxpayer-backed transnational banks said in a joint statement, noting that they would help harmonize and build policies around the world to advance the controversial “green” schemes. “We will work together to support global transformation in line with Rio+20 agreements.”
Top UN bureaucrats including Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed delight over the amount of money flowing toward “sustainability.” Indeed, despite the growing criticism, the increasingly overt alliance between Big Business and the UN in advancing the “sustainable development” agenda was probably one of the most important achievements of the summit.
“From the very beginning, we have said Rio+20 is about implementation. It is about concrete action. And the commitments that we share with you today demonstrate that governments, the UN system and the nine major groups are committed and serious about implementation,” boasted Rio+20 Secretary General Sha Zukang, an anti-American Chinese Communist who also heads the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. “The total figure is now 692 registered commitments. Ladies and Gentlemen, this brings the estimated total value of commitments to $513 billion.” The press applauded like cheerleaders.
The Future They Want
The other centerpiece of the Rio+20 outcomes was a final agreement adopted on the last day of the conference by almost every national government in the world. However, despite grand expectations by UN supporters and the global institution itself before the summit, the document did not contain any new, officially binding mandates to foist on humanity.
In a ham-handed marketing gimmick, the document was named “The Future We Want.” Critics later seized on the title to point out that the “We” actually refers not to humanity, but to the coalition of UN functionaries, dictators, tax-funded environmentalist organizations, and Big Business bosses seeking to profit at taxpayer expense.
As analysts had expected, the text included a broad range of controversial statements that set alarm bells ringing among UN critics. World governments all reaffirmed, for example, that they would continue to be “guided” by the principles of the deeply unpopular planetary institution. The parties also agreed to keep working for “good governance” at the international level, complete with more powerful and more expensive UN institutions.
Indeed, the whole document was filled with references to shifting power and resources toward global entities. Continuing to implement the deeply controversial UN Agenda 21 — agreed to at the first Earth Summit in Rio two decades ago — was a top priority outlined in the agreement. Moving forward other treaties, including more than a few which openly represent serious threats to property rights, liberty, and national sovereignty, was emphasized as well.
Increased government involvement in the allocation of resources – a sure recipe to perpetuate poverty and environmental destruction – appeared in the document multiple times, including the recognition that “fundamental changes in the way societies consume and produce are indispensable for achieving global sustainable development.” In a nut shell, the UN and its supporters allege that there are too many people and that those people are too prosperous. The solution, they claim, is a more powerful UN to literally rule the world.
Contraception and terminology widely understood to mean universal access to legal abortion were also incorporated into the document — especially because of an obsession among Rio+20 participants with reducing the human population. A reference to “Mother Earth” made it in as well, as did numerous calls for more UN and government involvement in so-called “education” — mostly to teach children what the global institution wants them to believe about the alleged scourge of humanity.
Despite UN claims that the schemes outlined in the agreement were aimed at alleviating poverty and environmental problems, analysts noted that socialism and the big-government ideology outlined in the text are actually the primary causes of those two ills today. So, according to critics, degradation of the environment and the grinding poverty experienced by so many people around the world will only get worse — at least if the UN agreement offers any indication of the future to come.
Politically Toxic, Say Critics
The fact that Obama stayed away from the summit was seized upon by virtually every critic — from lawmakers and scientists to activists and NGOs — to point out that the UN agenda has now become extraordinarily unpopular, at least among the American voting public. Following the “global-warming” debacles and the seemingly never-ending series of “green energy” scandals in the wake of Solyndra’s bankruptcy, federal involvement in “green” schemes has indeed become politically toxic — not to mention the UN as an institution.
“President Obama is avoiding it like the plague,” observed GOP Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma in a video statement presented at Rio+20. The President’s “absence speaks volumes,” Inhofe said — especially considering Obama’s “far-left agenda” and its alignment with UN ambitions. Meanwhile, members of Congress including notorious pro-UN Democrats are ignoring Rio+20 as well, a stark contrast with past environmental gatherings.
Lord Christopher Monckton, a policy adviser and prominent opponent of the alarmist agenda, even celebrated after the conference closed. “They lost. They lost, and they lost big time,” he told TNA in an interview the day after Rio+20. “They of course did the ritual declaration that they succeeded, but they didn’t. I now think there is a good chance the West can survive the environmental movement.”
Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) Executive Director Craig Rucker told TNA that the UN and its tax-funded affiliates would not give up their funding without a fight. However, he also expressed hope that the UN’s grandiose vision of increased powers for itself and more centralization at the international level would not come to fruition — especially in the wake of the spectacular meltdown of the UN’s climate scaremongering.
According to Rucker, after Rio+20, the time has now come to seriously consider consigning the entire international institution to the dustbin of history. It has been under the control of radicals for some five decades, he noted, and that it might not be possible to fix it anymore. Instead, Rucker said, the way to solve real problems is through individual freedom, free enterprise, prosperity, respect for private property, and the rule of law. And people are realizing that in increasing numbers, he concluded, echoing sentiments expressed by multiple UN critics.
Supporters of UN Agenda
The swarms of non-governmental organizations and UN bureaucrats, of course, had high expectations for the summit in terms of advancing their agenda and perpetuating their tax-subsidized existence. But considering the lack of binding agreements or much significant progress on moving the schemes forward, the feeling of disappointment among many of the key players was overwhelming. Greenpeace, for example, said Rio+20 was a “failure of epic proportions.” Countless big-government supporting NGOs felt the same way.
Not everyone was as downbeat, however. Some proponents of the UN agenda noted with pleasure the creation of a “high level” forum on sustainability under the UN to keep working on the schemes while figuring out how to extract more wealth from taxpayers. And in the field of education — essentially brainwashing future generations into supporting the agenda, according to critics — some progress was certainly made.
Governments pledged to work together and incorporate more “sustainability” material into their school curricula, UN supporters observed with pleasure. And in Brazil, it is now mandatory. The youth, obviously, might be the key in this battle. If they can be convinced that the UN and overbearing government are the solutions, it will be much easier to foist the anti-liberty agenda on future generations.
Top negotiators held out hope, too. “The document does not entirely match our ambition or meet the challenges the world faces, but it is an important step forward. That’s why we support it, and that’s why we must engage,” said EU “Environment Commissioner” Janez Potočnik, a Slovenian known to liberty-minded critics in Europe as a “Communist apparatchik.” “We now have a basis.”
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — without citing any constitutional or congressional authority — pledged some $2 billion in taxpayer funds to advance the agenda. The money will be used for grants, “policy and regulatory development,” “public-private energy technology partnerships,” and to prod the private sector into getting on board. Prominent critics blasted the pledge, saying it actually opened the door to the creation of a “global EPA” and would largely be handed out to third-world dictators.
Considering the UN’s grandiose visions and the U.S. government’s inclination to spend trillions of dollars it does not even have on unconstitutional programs, the sum might not seem extraordinary. It certainly left many activists disappointed. Handing out American money and the final UN agreement, however, were not even the biggest or most important accomplishments, according to Clinton.
“The most compelling products of this conference are the examples of new thinking that can lead to models for future action,” she told Rio+20 attendees at the summit. “It should be said of Rio that people left here thinking, as the late Steve Jobs put it, not just big, but different…. The only way to deliver lasting progress for everyone is by preserving our resources and protecting our common environment.”
What It All Means
The UN and supporters of its agenda may not have achieved all of their sweeping goals at the summit. But the document they did agree to and the hundreds of commitments will ensure that the global government, anti-freedom scheming will march on. Using assorted real and bogus pretexts, some yet to be developed, the UN and other supporters of the agenda now have a lot of money at their disposal, as well as an agreement to keep the schemes going indefinitely.
Activists on both sides of the debate did say Rio+20 might be the beginning of the end for grand planetary negotiations on the “environment.” Some analysts even said the global-warming alarmism of years past might be in its final death throes — a development that would put a big dent in the UN’s plans. What was clear after the summit, however, was that the plan to build an all-powerful planetary regime at the expense of human liberty and national sovereignty is still a long way from being dead.
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