Heart of Rio

The United Nations Rio+20 conference is taking place in a few days. Two main themes underscore this event:

1) the green economy and global sustainable development,

2) international institutions for sustainable development.

At its core, Rio+20 is about creating a new “green” economic order, directed by global regulatory agents. In other words, it’s about global governance empowered to enforce a green international socialism.

But this shouldn’t come as a surprise, after all, the 1992 Rio Earth Summit – the forefather to Rio+20 – was about the same thing. Hence, if you want to understand what’s taking place in Brazil, June 20-22, you need to grasp what transpired twenty years past.

The latest edition of Forcing Change is about just that: Understanding the implications of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. However, before a brief explanation of this issue of Forcing Change is given, here are a few interesting quotes from and about – before, during, and after – the 1992 Rio Earth Summit (known by its acronym, UNCED) and the processes and visions people attached to it.

Notice three themes: 1) Global governance, 2) Global socialism, 3) Global paganism. A fourth theme could be added; Global values change. This, however, would require an essay in itself – to get a hint of this meme, see my article, All For Gaia: Earth Day and Total Transformation for a Post-Christian World.

Global Governance

The agreements reached at the Earth Summit on a set of principles, the Rio Declaration, and a program of action based on these principles, Agenda 21, had some shortcomings. But on the whole they represent the most comprehensive and far ranging set of measures to secure the future of our planet ever agreed by the world community. And the fact that this agreement was reached at the highest political level lends the results of Rio a unique political authority.

– Maurice F. Strong (Secretary General of UNCED), remarks during the University of Victoria 1993 Commencement, Victoria, BC, May 28, 1993, text on file.

 

UNCED… holds a broader significance. The environment issue was set up as a global issue in need for global action. There were demands to strengthen international law, which could make nations toe the line. Non governmental organizations (NGOs) had been forming global networks and were working on global campaigns.

These efforts at the global level directly contributed to building a sense of global identity, or global citizenship which would be the first step towards global governance.

– Youth Sourcebook on Sustainable Development (International Institute for Sustainable Development, 1994), p.63.

 

   The debate has been prompted by evidence that the survival of the planet is in doubt. The issues are not about if a global politics is necessary. The question is how do we achieve binding agreements in Law complete with effective programs for applying sanctions against non-compliance that would oblige each nation, regardless of size, to abide by a set of principles that are required to guarantee the survival of life on this earth. Perhaps we will find that there is no other alternative to a system of rigid controls that some would equate to a police state. Unfortunately, in order to save the planet from biocide, there have to be very powerful constraints from doing the ‘wrong’ things. The constraints must transcend national boundaries, be world-around and enforceable. There would be a need for an agency for preventing eco-vandals from acting unilaterally.

Enforcement agencies would need the power to act without being invited by the offending nation. Therefore, there needs to be an agency that is acceptable to all nationstates on the planet. We can probably accept the fact that there will always be one or more nations that will not go along but there must be effective sanctions in place. If sanctions do not work, then physical occupation and the installation of a World Trusteeship would be imposed upon the offending nations. This need not be a feared legislative measure, for once in place nations considering violations would be deterred just from the ‘knowing’ that they will not be tolerated. Offenders would face collective opposition of the other nations. The principle is that no one nation would be more powerful than the coalition of nations that would oppose any abrogation of a Global Survival Law.

– Jim Bohlen, “Toward a Global Green Constitution,” Sustainable Development for a New World Agenda, final report of the 1990 World Environment Energy and Economic Conference, Winnipeg, MB (a pre-Rio event in preparation for UNCED, sponsored in part by the Province of Manitoba and UNESCO), p.15-16.

NOTE: The May edition of Forcing Change excerpts an important section of text from the WEEEC report.

 

We must learn to accept the fact that environmental considerations are part of a unified management of our planet.

– Evhan Uzwyshyn, “Forward,” Sustainable Development for a New World Agenda, final report of the 1990 World Environment Energy and Economic Conference, Winnipeg, MB (a pre-Rio event in preparation for UNCED), p.vi.

 

The Earth Summit is not an end in itself, but a new beginning. The measures you agree on here will be but first steps on a new pathway to our common future. Thus, the results of this Conference will ultimately depend on the credibility and effectiveness of its follow-up. It is, therefore, of the highest importance that all Governments commit themselves to translate the decisions they take collectively here to national policies and practices required to give effect to them, particularly implementation of Agenda21.

– Maurice F. Strong, remarks at UNCED, Report on the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, A/CONF.151.26 (Volume IV).

 

Global Socialism

The principle of global economic equality is central to a green government’s population policy. The cornerstone of economic equality is an assured basic income from birth to death for every woman, man, and child on Earth, free medical and dental care, education to the highest level of a person’s interest and capability, and most importantly, access to socially useful work.

– Jim Bohlen, “Toward a Global Green Constitution,” Sustainable Development for a New World Agenda, final report of the 1990 World Environment Energy and Economic Conference, Winnipeg, MB (a pre-Rio event in preparation for UNCED), p.11.

 

Every individual, organization, corporation and state shall dedicate a percentage of their operating budget and their profit as an “Earth Percentage” dedicated to the restoration, protection and management of Earth’s ecosystems and promotion of equitable development.

– The NGO Treaties: The Earth Charter – Action Plan (Note: The NGO Treaties were developed during the NGO component of the 1992 Earth Summit). Full text of NGO Treaties on file, as released from the Earth Council in June, 1993. The format of this paper copy may not correlate to online versions.

 

We demand the payment of the environmental debt which the rich countries have incurred with the poor countries. This payment will ensure that all society benefits from clean, environmentally sound technologies… We will work to establish a carbon emission tax in all nations where the average emission is one ton or more per person…

– The NGO Treaties: Treaty on Alternative Economic Mode – Action Plan, paragraph 3,6

 

Global Paganism

I went to the Earth Summit and spent three weeks with the “Wisdomkeepers,” a group of global transformationalists invited by Hanne Strong [Note: wife to the UNCED General Secretary] to “hold” the energy pattern, while the UNCED was in full process. We did this with meditation, drumming and a fire that was kept up during the duration of the conference. Symbolic? Perhaps. But I sensed that something shifted during the conference.

– Hans J. Keller, “Forward,” Who is Who in Service to the Earth (VisionLink, 1993), p.i.

 

We are the Earth, the people, plants and animals, rains and ocean, breath of the forest and flow of the sea. We honour Earth as the home of all living things… We welcome Earth’s ability to renew as being the basis of all life. We recognize the special place of Earth’s Indigenous Peoples, their territories, their customs and the unique relationship to Earth… In all our diversity we are one.

– The NGO Treaties: The Earth Charter – Preamble.

 

We are reminded by the Declaration of the Sacred Earth Gathering, which met here last weekend, that the changes in behaviour and direction called for here must be rooted in our deepest spiritual, moral and ethical values. We must reinstate in our lives the ethic of love and respect for the Earth which traditional peoples have retained as central to their value systems.

– Maurice F. Strong, remarks at UNCED, Report on the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, A/CONF.151.26 (Volume IV).

 

I should like to conclude by saying that the spirit of Rio must create a new form of good citizenship. After loving his neighbour as the Bible required him to, post-Rio man must also love the world, including the flowers, birds and trees – every part of that natural environment that we are constantly destroying.

Over and above the moral contract with God, over and above the social contract concluded with men, we must now conclude an ethical and political contract with nature, with this Earth to which we owe our very existence and which gives us life.

To the ancients, the Nile was a god to be venerated, as was the Rhine, an infinite source of European myths, or the Amazonian forest, the mother of forests. Throughout the world, nature was the abode of the divinities that gave the forest, the desert or the mountains a personality which commanded worship and respect. The Earth had a soul. To find that soul again, to give it new life, that is the essence of Rio.

– Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Secretary-General of the United Nations, closing remarks at UNCED, Report on the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, see Annex III: Closing Statements. A/CONF.151.26 (Volume IV).

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With the above said, please note that the latest edition of Forcing Change is now online. With the United Nations Rio+20 Earth Summit fast approaching, this issue of FC provides some much-needed historical context. Two guest writers present the game-changing nature and consequences of the 1992 Rio Summit, which form the roots of the current Rio event, and I’ve added detailed content boxes and editorial notes to help you put more pieces together. Furthermore, in the back of this edition I’ve added a section from a pre-Rio conference held in 1990. Understand, before any United Nations summit takes place – including the one this June – years of preparatory work comes first; consultations, research conferences, committee meetings, and a wealth of events and reports generated by the non-governmental community. Hence, in this Forcing Change I’ve added a section of text from one of these influential pre-’92 Summit conferences: “Towards a Global Green Constitution.” This is a real eye opener!  

NOTE: If all goes well, the next of edition of Forcing Change will carry a major report on the Population Control agenda, as this dovetails with the Earth Summit taking place. Please pray that I can put the necessary time and resources into this project.

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