THE RISE OF GLOBAL GOVERNANCE
Part II
"The people gaze fascinated at one or two familiar superficialities,
such as possessions, income, rank and other outworn conceptions. As
long as these are kept intact, they are quite satisfied. But in the
meantime they have entered a new relation: a powerful social force
has caught them up."
Hitler |
The Environmental Movement
(Part 1) (1970s)
Not a single vote was cast against the Wilderness Act of 1964 when
it finally reached the Senate. Congress thought it was setting aside
nine million acres of wilderness so posterity could see a sample of
what their forefathers had to conquer in order to create America.
The new law was the crowning achievement of the Wilderness Society,
to which its Director,
Howard Zahniser had devoted five years of
constant lobbying.
Though unnoticed at the time, the new law
signaled an end to the traditional "conservation" movement and the
beginning of a new environmental "preservation" movement. The
conservation movement might be characterized by the idea that
private land owners should voluntarily conserve natural resources;
the environmental preservation movement is characterized by the
notion that the government should enforce conservation measures
through extensive regulations.
By this distinction, the Wilderness
Society brought the environmental movement to Congress. Robert
Marshall, Benton MacKaye, and Aldo Leopold -- all avowed socialists
-- organized the Society in the early 1930s and proclaimed their
socialist ideas loudly.
Marshall's 1933 book, The People's Forests,
says,
"Public ownership is the only basis on which we can hope to protect
the incalculable values of the forests for wood resources, for soil
and water conservation, and for recreation... Regardless of
whether it might be desirable, it is impossible under our existing
form of government to confiscate the private forests into public
ownership. We cannot afford to delay their nationalization until the
form of government changes."37
This significant event failed to register a blip on the radar screen
of public awareness. Instead, public attention focused on the racial
strife, the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, and the Viet Nam
War which tore apart the convention, the party, and the nation. The
First "Earth Day" in 1970, which perhaps coincidentally was
celebrated on Lenin's birthday, April 22, was viewed as little more
than a festival for flower children. The anti-war fervor, again,
brought a quarter-million protesters to the Mall, and Watergate
brought down the Nixon Presidency.
The Clean Water Act of 1972 and
the Endangered Species Act of 1973 served as beacons to attract the
energies and idealism of a generation of young people who had
successfully forced the world's most powerful government to abandon
a war they saw to be unjust. The 1970s witnessed an unprecedented
explosion in the number of environmental organizations and in the
number of people who joined and supported these organizations.
Among the more important but lesser known organizations formed
during this period are
the Club of Rome (COR -- 1968) and
the
Trilateral Commission (TC -- 1973). The COR is a small group of
international industrialists, educators, economists, national and
international civil servants. Among them were various Rockefellers
and approximately 25 CFR members. Maurice Strong was one of the
"international" civil servants.38
Their first book, The Limits to
Growth, published in 1972 unabashedly describes the world as they
believe it should be:
"We believe in fact that the need will quickly become evident for
social innovation to match technical change, for radical reform of
the institutions and political processes at all levels, including
the highest, that of world polity. And since intellectual
enlightenment is without effect if it is not also political, The
Club of Rome also will encourage the creation of a world forum where
statesmen, policy-makers, and scientists can discuss the dangers and
hopes for the future global system without the constraints of formal
intergovernmental negotiation."3
That "world forum" was authorized in 1972 by UN Resolution 2997
(XXVII) as the UN Conference on the Human Environment. Maurice
Strong was designated Secretary-General of the Conference which,
among other things, recommended the creation of the United Nations
Environment Program (UNEP), which came into being January 1, 1973,
with Maurice Strong as its first Executive Director.40
The
Conference held in Stockholm produced 26 principles and 109 specific
recommendations which parroted much of the language in the COR
publications. The difference is, of course, that the Conference
Report carries the weight of the United Nations and has profound
policy implications for the entire world.41
Another COR publication, Mankind at the Turning Point, provides
further insight into the thinking that underlies global governance:
"The solution of these crises can be developed only in a global
context with full and explicit recognition of the emerging world
system and on a long-term basis. This would necessitate, among other
changes, a new world economic order and a global resources
allocation system...
A "world consciousness" must be developed
through which every individual realizes his role as a member of the
world community... It must become part of the consciousness of
every individual that the basic unit of human cooperation and hence
survival is moving from the national to the global level."42
A companion work by the same authors, Mihajlo Mesarovic and
Eduard
Pestel, entitled Regionalized and Adaptive Model of the
Global World System, introduced and described a system of regionalization which
divided the globe into 10 regions, each with its own hierarchical
system of sub-regions.43
The Trilateral Commission published a book entitled Beyond
Interdependence The Meshing of the World's Economy and the Earth's
Ecology, by Jim MacNeil. David Rockefeller wrote the foreword;
Maurice Strong wrote the introduction.
Strong said,
"This interlocking... is the new reality of the century, with
profound implications for the shape of our institutions of
governance, national and international. By the year 2012, these
changes must be fully integrated into our economic and political
life."44
In retrospect, it is clear that the early work of the United Nations
was an effort to achieve global consensus on the philosophy upon
which its programmatic work would be built. It is also clear that,
despite the disproportionate share of the cost borne by capitalist
nations, the prevailing philosophy at the UN is essentially
socialist. The fundamental idea upon which America was founded --
that men are born totally free and choose to give up specified
freedoms to a limited government -- is not the prevailing philosophy
at the UN, nor at the CFR, the COR, the TC, or the IUCN.
Instead,
the prevailing philosophy held by these organizations and
institutions is that government is sovereign and may dispense or
withhold freedoms and privileges, or impose restrictions and
penalties, in order to manage its citizens to achieve peace and
prosperity for all.
In his book, Freedom at the Altar, William Grigg
says it this way:
"Under the American concept of rights, the individual possesses
God-given rights which the state must protect. However, the UN
embraces a collectivist world view in which "rights" are highly
conditional concessions made by an all-powerful government."45
Another description of the difference between the two ideas is
offered by Philip Bom, in The Coming Century of Communism:
"In the western Constitutional concept, limited government is
established to protect the fundamental natural human rights of the
free individuals in a free society. In a radical socialist concept
of the state, the citizen has a duty to the state to help the state
promote the socialization or communization of the man."46
These fundamentally different, conflicting ideas have been described
differently by different people at different times. In 1842, Karl
Marx and Friedrich Engels preached their gospel through an
organization known as the "Federation of the Just." In 1845 it was
the International Democratic Association of Brussels that promoted
their ideas. By 1903 the organization that championed Marxism was
the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party before Lenin
transformed it into the Communist Party.
The names used to describe
the prevailing philosophy at the UN are confusing to Americans.
Regardless of the name attached, the underlying philosophy has
several common characteristics that readily identify it as different
from the philosophy upon which America was founded. Chief among
those characteristics is the abhorrence of private property.
As
Philip Bom points out:
"In the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
identified communism with democracy. "The communist revolution is
the most radical rupture with traditional property relations...
to win the battle of democracy".
They also pointed out that, "The
abolition of existing property relations is not at all a distinctive
feature of communism... The distinctive feature of communism is... abolition of private property."47
Another tell-tale characteristic of socialist/communist philosophy
is the assumption of omnipotent government. Philip Bom addresses the
semantics problems as well as the omnipotent government issue this
way:
"The war of words and world views of democracy continues but with
greater confusion of priorities. President Reagan professed that
"freedom and democracy are the best guarantors for peace." President
Gorbachev confessed that peace and maximum democracy are the
guarantors of freedom. "Our aim is to grant maximum freedom to
people, to the individual, to society."48
In the Gorbachev statement, it is assumed that "freedom" is the
government's to give. The U.S. Constitution clearly views "freedom"
to be the natural condition of man and assigns the protection of
freedom as government's first responsibility. International
equality, equity, social justice, security of the people, democratic
society all are terms used in UN documents that have a completely
different meaning in a socialist context from the meaning understood
in America.
These differences become exceedingly important in the context of
official UN documents. Consider the language in the UN's Covenant on
Human Rights, a document that bears approximately the same
relationship to the UN Charter that the Bill of Rights bears to the
U.S. Constitution.
Article 13 says
"Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs may be subject only
to such limitations as are prescribed by law..."
By contrast, the Bill of Rights says
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
Article 14 of the Covenant 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."
The Bill of Rights says
"Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech,
or of the press..." Period.
The philosophy of omnipotent government permeates virtually all of
the documents that have flowed from the UN since its inception.
Consider the preamble to the report of the first World Conference on
Human Settlements (Habitat I) held in 1976 under the auspices of
Maurice Strong's newly formed United Nations Environmental Programme,
"Private land ownership is a principal instrument of accumulating
wealth and therefore contributes to social injustice. Public control
of land use is therefore indispensable."
Their recommendation:
"Public ownership of land is justified in favor of the common good,
rather than to protect the interest of the already privileged."49
Morris Udall and others tried unsuccessfully to implement the
Federal Land Use Planning Act in the early 1970s influenced by those
seeking to impose global governance.
In the early 1970s the UN created a Commission to Study the
Organization of Peace. As if singing in the same choir, the U.S.
created a Commission to Study the Organization of Peace. On May Day,
1974, a proposal was submitted to the UN General Assembly calling
for a New International Economic Order (NIEO); it was adopted as a
Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States on December 12,
1974. It called for the redistribution of wealth and political
power, and the promotion of international justice based on the
"duties" of developed countries and the "rights" of developing
countries.
Throughout the 1970s, college students and others joined
environmental organizations in droves. They protested, carried
placards, picked up litter, preached recycling and organic
gardening, mostly unaware that their leaders were attending
conferences and promoting agendas based on the same philosophy that
America had opposed in Viet Nam, Cuba, and the Soviet Union.
Carefully crafted documents, magnified by a cooperative media,
elevated the environment to a most noble cause. The object of
near-worship for an army of energetic activists, "the environment"
as an international issue was ripe for the picking by the advocates
of global governance.
The Environmental Movement
(Part 2) (1980s)
"Bait-and-switch" is a time-tested technique used by unscrupulous
merchants to offer one thing and then provide another. The
environmental movement of the 1970s was the unwitting victim of its
leadership which offered a cleaner environment but, in the 1980s,
delivered instead a massive program to achieve global governance.
The
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) had already,
-
launched
a Regional Seas Program (1973)
-
conducted a UN Conference on Trade
and Development (UNCTAD 1974)
-
developed a Global Frame-work for
Environmental Education (1975)
-
established the International
Environmental Education Program (IEEP)
-
set up a Global
Environmental Monitoring System (GEMS)
-
set up a World Conservation
Monitoring Center at Cambridge, England (1975 as a joint project
with the IUCN and the WWF)
-
implemented the Human Exposure
Assessment Location Program (HEAL -- 1976)
-
conducted a UN
Conference on Desertification (1977)
-
organized the Designated
Officials for Environmental Matters (DOEM)
-
in 1980, published
World Conservation Strategy jointly with the IUCN and the WWF.
The DOEM is an organizational structure that requires every UN agency
and organization to designate an official to UNEP in order to
coordinate all UN activity with the UNEP agenda. UNEP was well
positioned to interject the environment into the argument for global
governance.50 Recognizing that communications was the key to global
education, UNESCO adopted in 1978 a,
"Declaration on Fundamental
Principles Concerning the Contribution of the Mass Media to
Strengthen Peace and International Understanding, to the Promotion
of Human Rights and to Countering Racialism, Apartheid and
Incitement of War."
To figure out what the declaration meant, UNESCO
Director General, Dr. A. M. McBow, appointed Sean MacBride to chair
the International Commission for the Study of Communication
Problems. Their report was released in 1980 entitled Many Voices,
One World Towards a new more just and more efficient world
information and communication order. The head of TASS, the official
news agency of the Soviet Union, was one of fifteen chosen to serve
on the Commission.
Not surprisingly, the report said that the "media should contribute
to promoting the just cause of peoples struggling for freedom and
independence and their right to live in peace and equality without
foreign interference." It expressed concern about independent news
monopolies, such as the Associated Press and Reuters, but was not at
all concerned about state controlled news monopolies such as TASS.
It recommended a transnational political communication
superstructure "within the framework of UNESCO," an International
Centre for the Study and Planning of Information and
Communication.51
The Commission believed that a "new World
Information Order" was prerequisite to a new world economic order.
The report reflected the same "sovereign government" philosophy
demonstrated in Article 14 of the Covenant on Human Rights
government, UNESCO in particular, should have the authority to
regulate the flow of information to "promote" its agenda, and
minimize public awareness of conflicting ideas. A proposal to
require international journalists to be licensed brought swift and
dramatic negative re-action which pushed this proposal to the back
burner. The idea of controlling the media continues to simmer, even
though an alternative plan was developed through NGOs.
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) allocated funding to
establish computer network services for NGOs and academics in Latin
America. The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) linked
together networks in Brazil, Russia, Canada, Australia, Sweden,
England, Nicaragua, Ecuador, South Africa, Ukraine, Mexico, Slovene,
and then entered into a partnership with the Institute for Global
Communications (IGC).
Known simply as
igc.apc.org, this gigantic
computer network now boasts 17,000 users in 94 countries. It has
exclusive contracts with several UN agencies to coordinate,
facilitate, and disseminate information about and from UN
conferences.
This NGO has arrangements with at least the following
UN agencies:
-
UN Association International Service (UNAIS)
-
UN Centre for Human
Rights
-
UNICEF
-
UNDP
-
UN Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW)
-
UNESCO
-
UNEP
-
UN Information Centre (UNIC)
-
UN International
Conference on Population and Development (ICPD)
-
UN International
Emergency Network (UNIENET)
-
UN Non-Government Liaison Service (NGLS)
-
UN Population Fund (UNFPA)
-
UN Secretariat for the Fourth World
Conference on Women (UNWCW)
-
UN University (UNU)
-
UN Volunteers
(UNV) 52
West German Chancellor, Willy Brandt, was tapped to chair another
International Commission in 1980, the Independent Commission on
International Development. The Commission report, entitled
North-South A Program for Survival, stated:
"World development is not merely an economic process, [it] involves
a profound transformation of the entire economic and social
structure... not only the idea of economic betterment, but also
of greater human dignity, security, justice and equity... The
Commission realizes that mankind has to develop a concept of a
"single community" to develop a global order."
The report says that the choice is either development or
destruction; either "a just and humane society" or a move towards
[the world's] own destruction."53
For 50 years, Sweden was a socialist country. In 1976, the
socialists were dumped and conservatives took over -- until 1982.
Olof Palme restored socialism to Sweden and was promptly rewarded
with the chairmanship of the Independent Commission on Disarmament
and Security (ICDST). In their report, entitled A Common Security
Blueprint For Survival, the Commission built on Kennedy's 1962
Blueprint for the Peace Race, and on the 1974 Charter for a New
International Economic Order, which linked disarmament with
development.
The Charter's Article 13 says:
"All States have the duty to promote the achievement of general and
complete disarmament under effective international control and to
utilize the resources released by effective disarmament measures for
the economic and social development of countries, allocating a
substantial portion of such resources as additional means for the
development needs of developing countries."
The Brandt Commission report had concluded that security meant not
only the military defense of a nation, but also required solving the
non-military problems -- such as poverty -- to improve the basic
conditions necessary for peaceful relations among nations. Their
conclusion was bolstered by the report of a UN advisor, Inga
Thorsson, a Swedish Under-Secretary of State, who wrote:
"It is important that we do not content ourselves only with the
actual disarmament efforts. World disarmament is needed for world
development -- but equally, world development is a prerequisite for
world disarmament. Not until we have arrived at a situation of
reasonable equity and economic balance in the world, will it be
possible to develop conditions for a lasting disarmament."54
The United States and the Soviet Union had hammered out a policy
generally known as "peaceful coexistence," to avoid MAD --
Mutually
Assured Destruction. The Palme Commission proposed a strategic shift
from collective security, insured by the superpowers for the
constellation of affiliated nations, to the concept of common
security through the United Nations. The concept also linked the
transfer of money saved by the disarming superpowers to the
development of underdeveloped nations, transferred through and
redistributed by the United Nations.55
A work that began in 1973 was completed in 1981 -- the UN Convention
on the Law of the Sea. The U.S. and the USSR wanted the Convention
limited to navigational questions. But a group of 77 developing
nations, known as G-77, hijacked the conference and the subsequent
negotiations and wrote into the treaty the principles of the New
International Economic Order (NIEO) – a UN taxing authority. The
treaty created the International Seabed Authority (ISA) which would
have jurisdiction over all non-territorial waters and the seabed. No
seabed activity, mining, salvaging, and so forth, can occur without
a permit from the ISA.
Application fees begin at $250,000 and a schedule of royalties is
set forth in the Convention. The Convention is the first to give
direct taxing authority to the UN. It is a legal mechanism for the
redistribution of wealth from developed nations to developing
nations. The U.S. had avoided the Convention until 1994 when
President Clinton signed the Treaty. Secretary of State, Warren
Christopher, has announced that ratification of the treaty will be a
priority for the Clinton Administration in 1997.56
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) had grown dramatically by 1982, with
organizations in several countries, including the United States.
Russell Train, the President of WWF-USA, secured more than $25
million in grants from MacArthur Foundation, Andrew K. Mellon
Foundation, and from "US and Foreign governments, international
agencies, and individual gifts," to launch a new NGO – the World
Resources Institute (WRI) headquartered in Washington, D.C.
James Gustave Speth was chosen as President.
Speth, a Rhodes Scholar,
turned to the environment after the Viet Nam war and co-founded the
Natural Resources Defense Council. He became a Rockefeller protégé
and is described as "one of the most effective environmentalists
alive today." He served as President of WRI for 11 years, then as a
member of President Clinton’s transition team, then moved to the
UNDP as its head.57 The WRI joined the WWF and the IUCN to become
the three-cornered NGO foundation for the global environmental
agenda.
A World Charter for Nature was the chief product of a 1982 World
Conference on Environment and Development, at which Maurice Strong
said
"I believe we are seeing the convergence of the physical and social
worlds with the moral and spiritual. The concepts of loving, caring
and sharing... for a saner, more cooperative world... are the
indispensable foundations on which the future security system for a
small planet must now be based."58
In 1984, there was a World Conference on environmental management.
But a Conference in Vienna, Austria, in 1985 established UNEP as a
major player in world affairs when it produced the Vienna Convention
on Ozone Depleting Substances. The ascendancy of Mikhail Gorbachev
to the Soviet throne received far more media attention than did the
Ozone Treaty. Most Americans did not hear about the Treaty until the
Montreal Protocol in 1987 which banned certain refrigerants and
fire-fighting materials.
Another World Conference on Environment and Development was held in
1987. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Vice President of the World Socialist
Party, was named as Chair. The Brundtland Commission Report,
entitled Our Common Future, embraced most of the ideas contained in
the UNEP/IUCN/WWF publication World Conservation Strategy, including
the concept of "sustainable development." It is the Brundtland
Commission that links the environment to development and development
to poverty.
The Report says:
"Poverty is a major cause and effect of global environmental
problems. It is therefore futile to attempt to deal with
environmental problems without a broader perspective that
encompasses the factors underlying world poverty and international
inequality."59
Brundtland was a member of the Brandt Commission. Maurice Strong
(who chaired the first world Conference on Environment and
Development in 1972) was a member of the Brundtland Commission.
Shirdath Ramphal was a member of the Brandt, Palme, and Brundtland
Commissions, and later co-chaired the UN-funded Commission of Global
Governance. Ramphal is a past President of the IUCN.
The Brundtland
Commission succeeded in two break-through accomplishments,
(1) it
linked poverty, equity, and security to environmental issues
(2)
it recognized that the environment was a popular issue around which
individuals, NGOs, and governments could rally
The environment was
firmly established as the battle-cry to mobilize the world to create
the New Economic World Order.
While UNEP was convening the first Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change in 1988, the UNDP was funding a Global Forum of
Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders for Human Survival, sponsored
jointly by the UNDP's Global Committee of Parliamentarians on
Population and Development (created in 1982) and the Temple of
Understanding.
The Temple of Understanding is an NGO accredited to
the UN, and one of several projects of the
Cathedral of St. John the
Divine in New York City.
The featured speaker at the Forum was James
Lovelock, author of The Ages of Gaia. Lovelock said On Earth, she [gaia]
is the source of life, everlasting and is alive now, she gave birth
to humankind and we are a part of her."60 The
Gaia Institute is also
housed at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, as is the Lindisfarne Association which published
G-A-I-A, A Way of Knowing
Political Implications of the New Biology. Maurice Strong is a
member of Lindisfarne and often speaks at the Cathedral, as do
Robert Muller and Vice President Al Gore.61
The Forum produced what was called the "Joint Appeal" which grew
into the National Religious Partnership for the Environment (NRPE).
The project is endorsed by eleven major environmental organizations,
has received grants of more than $5 million, and is currently
engaged in mailing "education and action kits" to 53,000
congregations.
Amy Fox, Associate Director of the NRPE, says
"We are required by our religious principles to look for the links
between equity and ecology. 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 policy; community economic development; toxic
pollution and hazardous waste; and corporate responsibility."62
The decade had begun with an eruption of Mt. St. Helens, and perhaps
a more spectacular political eruption arch-conservative Ronald
Reagan captured the White House from arch-liberal, Jimmy Carter.
Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), more popularly known as
"star wars," is cited as a major factor in the eventual collapse of
the Soviet Union.
The USSR, which Reagan dubbed "the evil empire,"
did assume a new attitude about arms reduction and disarmament.
Gorbachev announced "glasnost," a new policy of openness, and
"perestroika" a restructuring program which featured measured "free
market" opportunities. Gorbachev, who was infinitely closer to
the
socialist dominated inner-circle of the UN-global-governance cabal
than was the Reagan Administration, may well have been preparing to
shift the seat of socialist leadership from the Soviet Union to the
United Nations.
The newly formulated strategy of common security,
rather than collective security could not accommodate the notion of
a single state, even the Soviet Union, as the seat of global
authority. And it is now clear that, even though it appeared to the
west that Gorbachev was moving his country toward capitalism, he
never had any such intention.
Gorbachev told his Politburo in November, 1987:
"Gentlemen, comrades, do not be concerned about all you hear about
Glasnost and Perestroika and democracy in the coming years. They are
primarily for outward consumption. There will be no significant
internal changes in the Soviet Union, other than for cosmetic
purposes. Our purpose is to disarm the Americans and let them fall
asleep."
He later wrote:
"Those who hope that we shall move away from the socialist path will
be greatly disappointed. Every part of our program of perestroika --
and the program as a whole, for that matter -- is fully based on the
principle of more socialism and more democracy... We will
proceed toward better socialism rather than away from it. We are
saying this honestly, without trying to fool our own people or the
world. Any hopes that we will begin to build a different,
non-socialist society and go over to the other camp are unrealistic
and futile. We, the Soviet people, are for socialism. We want more
socialism and therefore more democracy."63
By November 9, 1989, when the Berlin Wall collapsed, it became clear
to the world that events had out-run Gorbachev's intentions. The
Soviet Union, along with 70 years of utopian-communist dreams,
collapsed as thoroughly as did the wall. The vacuum thus created in
the global political balance was seen as an invitation to usher in a
new, permanent balancing force -- global governance.
The role and capacity of NGOs was greatly enhanced in the mid 1980s
when Donald Ross of the Rockefeller Family Fund -- the same
Rockefeller money pot that launched the Council on Foreign Relations
-- invited the leaders of five other Foundations to meet informally
in Washington. From that meeting grew the Environmental Grantmakers
Association, a nearly invisible group of more than 100 major
Foundations and corporations. They meet annually to discuss projects
and grant proposals and decide which NGOs will be funded.64
Having gained a measure of national prominence in his failed bid for
the White House in 1988, then Senator Al Gore, as chair of the
Senate Science and Technology Committee, assumed the responsibility
of advancing the global environmental agenda in America. It was
Gore, and then-Senator Timothy Wirth, who arranged special "prayer
breakfasts" with selected congressmen for James Parks Morton, Dean
of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, to promote the National
Religious Partnership for the Environment.65
It was Gore who led the Senate to approve the Montreal Protocol
which banned refrigerants. It was Gore who brought James E. Hansen,
head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard
Institute for Space Studies, to the Senate chambers to testify that
he was "99% certain that greenhouse warming had begun."66
The decade of the 1980s was a pivotal period for the advocates of
global governance.
-
The MacBride Commission had established the
principle of information management as a legitimate responsibility
of the United Nations, though only partially implemented through
participating NGOs IGC/APC
-
The Brandt Commission had linked
development with peace
-
The Palme Commission had linked
development with peace and disarmament as a way to shift military
power to the UN and money to the third world
-
The Brundtland
Commission linked development to the environment and introduced the
concept of "sustainability"
-
The NGOs, coordinated by the IUCN/WWF/WRI
triumvirate, and funded by the Rockefeller-coordinated Environmental Grantmakers Association, launched a world-wide campaign to convince
the world that the planet stood at the brink of environmental
disaster
It could be averted only by a massive transformation of
human societies which would require all people to accept their
spiritual and moral responsibility to embrace their common global
heritage and conform to a system of international law that
integrates environmental, economic, and equity issues under the
watchful, regulatory authority of a new system of global governance.
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