Origins of the modern Environmental Movement

Origins of the modern Environmental Movement According to “The Greening: The Environmentalists’ Drive for Global Power” by Abraham and Sanders (1993)

Step 1: The Idea Found early expression in: The Report from Iron Mountain on the Possibility and Desirability of Peace, a 100- page booklet, written by “The Special Study Group” and published by Leonard C. Lewin in 1967 • “Some kind of general peace may soon be negotiable.” • “The pre-eminence of the concept of war as the principal organizing force in most societies has been insufficiently appreciated.” • “Without (war), no government has ever been able to obtain acquiescence in its “legitimacy,” or right to rule its society.”

The war system must be continued to maintain the class system • “Obviously, if the war system were to be discarded, new political machinery would be needed at once to serve this vital function. Until it is developed, the continuance of the war system must be assured, if for no other reason, among others, than to preserve whatever quality and degree of poverty a society requires as an incentive, as well as to maintain the stability of its internal organization of power.” (i.e, the class and economic structure)

Or we must find a surrogate for war, “the moral equivalent of war” • “Whether the substitute is ritual in nature or functionally substantive, unless it provides a believable life-and-death threat it will not serve the socially organizing function of war.” • “Economic surrogates for war must meet two principal criteria. They must be “wasteful,” in the common sense of the word, and they must operate outside the normal supply-demand system. A corollary that should be obvious is that the magnitude of the waste must be sufficient to meet the needs of a particular society. An economy as advanced and complex as our own requires the planned annual destruction of not less than 10 percent of gross national product…..” • (this is to maintain a certain level of poverty and a class structure)

In the section: “Substitutes for the Function of War:” • War on Poverty? Space research program?, an alien invasion threat? Each are considered. Better yet…… • “It may be, for instance, that gross pollution of the environment can eventually replace the possibility of mass destruction by nuclear weapons as the principal apparent threat to the survival of the species…. • But from present indications it will be a generation to a generation and a half before environmental pollution, however severe, will be sufficiently menacing, on a global scale, to offer a possible basis for a solution.”

We could invent a threat… • “However unlikely some of the possible alternative enemies we have mentioned may seem, we must emphasize that one must be found, of credible quality and magnitude, if a transition to peace is ever to come about without social disintegration. • It is more probable, in our judgment, that such a threat will have to be invented, rather than developed from unknown conditions.”

Report from Iron Mountain: • “Poisoning of the air, and of the principal sources of food and water, is already well advanced, and at first glance would seem promising…. It constitutes a threat that can be dealt with only through social organization and political power.”

Who was in the “Special Study Group?”- John Kenneth Galbraith • The “Report from Iron Mountain” was a highly secret think tank comprised of government, business, and academic leaders that worked in secrecy over a two and half year period. • In 1969, Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith admitted to being part of the group.

Step 2: The Blueprint: 1970: George Kennan writes in “To Prevent a World Wasteland… A Proposal,” in Foreign Affairs (journal for Council on Foreign Relations) “Not even the most casual reader of the public prints of recent months and years could be unaware of the growing chorus of warnings from qualified scientists as to what industrial man is now doing by overpopulation, plundering of the earth’s resources, and by a precipitate mechanization of many of life’s processes- to the intactness of natural environment on which his survival depends.”

Kennan quotes United Nations Secretary General: • “For the first time in the history of mankind,” UN Secretary-General U Thant wrote, “there is rising a crisis of worldwide proportions involving developed and developing countries alike- the crisis of human environment….. It is becoming apparent that if current trends continue, the future of life on earth could be endangered.”

So Kennan calls for: • Register all conservational activities at international, national, regional and local levels. • Promote coordination of environmental research activities at international level (later we get the IPCC). • Establish international environmental standards and advise and help regional organizations meet the standards. • Establish international authority that enforces rules for international activities on the high seas, the atmosphere, outer space, Arctic and Antarctic (UN) • International consensus and authorization in form of multi-lateral treaty or convention.

Therefore, Kennan concludes: • National interests will have to compromise in every struggle against environmental deterioration at the international level. • We would need to create an international Environmental Agency to carry out these functions. Sponsoring governments could support this agency with lots and lots of money.

Who is George Kennan? • Kennan was head of the U.S. State Department Policy Planning staff. He is considered the architect of the U.S. Cold War policy with the Soviet Union that dominated American foreign policy for 40 years. • I.e., Kennan was the father of the “containment” policy that elevated the Soviet Union to superpower status, divided the world into a two-superpower struggle for dominance that resulted in the expenditure of many trillions of dollars for “national defense.”

The Club of Rome takes up the theme… and then takes it several steps further…… • “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill.” • The Club of Rome (think tank), The First Global Revolution, 1973 • “The earth has a cancer and the cancer is man.… The real enemy, then, is man himself.… The resultant ideal sustainable population is hence more than 500 million but less than one billion.” • Club of Rome , from Goals for Mankind, Mankind at the Turning Point, and The First Global Revolution

The Press advances the program: • March 20, 1990, Seattle Post-Intelligencer: • “Environmental destruction is a “ticking time bomb” that poses a “more absolute” threat to human survival than nuclear holocaust during the Cold War, former Norwegian Prime Minister GrosBrundtland told an international environmental conference here.”

Government and business fund it… • Jan. 28, 1990: Seattle Times: • “Government, business and consumers have spent up to a trillion dollars, by Department of Commerce count, to clean the environment….. The U.S. seems to find three new environmental hazards for each one it conquers.”

But this is a war you aren’t supposed to actually win….. • Dennis Hayes, founder of Earth Day (1970): • “Twenty years after Earth Day, those of us who set forth to change the world are poised on the threshold of utter failure only to find ourselves now on the verge of losing the war?”

Step 3: Implementation:The Rio Earth Summit of 1992 • 1991- Jim MacNeil’s book, Beyond Interdependence: The Meshing of the World’s Economy and the Earth’s Ecology • With a foreward by David Rockefeller, the ultimate insider • And an introduction by Maurice Strong, so-called “Guardian of the Planet” (Strong was Executive Secretary of 1972 Stockholm Conference on Human Environment and Secretary General of 1992 UN Rio Earth Summit)

Strong speaks: • “The world has now moved beyond economic interdependence to ecological interdependence- to an intermeshing of the two. This intermeshing is the new reality of the century, with profound implications for the shape of our institutions of governance, national and international.” • “This will literally determine the fate of the earth” • “By the year 2012, these changes must be fully integrated into our economic and political lives” (through Agenda 21, Sustainable Development, etc.)

Jim MacNeil: • “The purpose of this conference is to launch a global transition to sustainable development.” • This shift will follow the well-known pattern of fascist partnership. Now it is called: Public-Private-Partnerships – i.e., coordination by corporations, governments, and non-governmental organizations.)

In reality “Sustainable Growth” = • Green de-industrialization • Global cartelization of natural resources • International control of the world’s economy • Therefore, “sustainable growth” = Iron Mountain report’s “stability” = Insider control

Sustainable Development = • Growth sufficient to meet human needs • A more equitable distribution of wealth among nations • Democracy and human rights • Economic system able to generate surpluses on a “sustainable” basis (the Establishment’s counterfeit “free market” and “privatization”) • International central planning • Preserving resources (i.e., global control of all natural resources) • Reductions in human population

Sustainable development according to critics: • The radical environmental agenda is now repackaged as Sustainable Development and calls for a restructuring of American society. • It really equals total control of the market and death of individual property rights. • Clinton’s environmental policy comes from the UN, from Strong. The goal is to take away American property rights and turn 50% of America into wilderness through the establishment of World Heritage Sites. • The function of Sustainability Councils is predetermined. NGO’s include the Sierra Club, The Nature Conservancy, Audubon Society, local agencies, business and academic community.

MacNeil calls for: • International environmental taxes (cap and trade?) • A “Green GNP” to help implement central planning and control of the world’s economy. • The end of national sovereignty. • Implementation of a World Government (Global Governance Agenda). • “Environmentalism” as the “moral equivalent of war”

From 2009 Cap and Trade bill (American Carbon and Energy Securities Act, or ACES) • “Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse emissions 80 percent by 2050.”

In order to scare people into agreeing to these major changes, the following eco-hoaxes are offered as our common enemy: • Overpopulation • Ozone hole • Global warming • Deforestation • Loss of biodiversity • Acid rain • Soil degradation • Rising sea levels

The Fear Factor • These are the modern equivalent of the H-bomb during the Cold War. • To save the planet from these “threats,” we must re-shape institutions and control everything. • So we have to redefine “national security” to include protection from all environmental threats.. • Or as H.L. Menken put it: • “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed- and hence clamorous to be led to safety- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

The Universities jump on the bandwagon • My experience: In 1990, I came to CSUS and began teaching. • One of course I taught was Human Ecology (GEOG 3020). • It happened that a well-produced series of ten one-hour documentaries named “Race to Save the Planet” had recently been completed and was available on campus. • The narrator was Roy Scheider and each program was introduced by Meryl Streep. Maurice Strong introduced the series.

The ‘Race to Save the Planet’ series: • #1- The Environmental Revolution: About human development from hunter/gatherer to industrial revolution to environmental revolution • #2: Remnants of Eden: About loss of biodiversity, species extinction • #3: It Needs Political Decisions: About imperative for environmental activism • #4: In the Name of Progress: How industrialization is killing us • #5: Save the Earth, Feed the World: About unsustainable agriculture • #6: More For Less: About energy efficiency and alternatives • #7: Do We Really Want to Live This Way?: About pollution from fossil fuels • #8: Waste Not, Want Not: About garbage and recycling • # 9: Only One Atmosphere: About global warming, ozone hole, etc. • #10: It’s Now or Never: A call for global political solutions

What happened at Rio Earth Summit-92? The policies were voluntarily implemented • Nations of the world adopted: • A) an Earth Charter • B) Agenda for 21st Century (Agenda 21) • C) committed to signing international treaties on global warming, deforestation, biodiversity • “2012 should see a new global partnership expressed in a revitalized international system in which an Earth Council… maintains the interlocked environmental and economic security of the planet.”

Politicians join the choir • Few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climate change. The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear. • President Barak Obama, November 19, 2008. • Climate Change is the greatest threat that human civilization has ever faced. • Angela Merkel, German Chancellor Humanity is sitting on a time bomb. If the vast majority of the world’s scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet’s climate system into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced- a catastrophe of our own making. Former Vice President Al Gore, from “An Inconvenient Truth” and Congressional testimony • This is an emergency…. It’ll make world war look like heaven. • Presidential candidate John Edwards

The threat of environmental crisis will be the “international disaster key” that will unlock the New World Order. • Mikhail Gorbachev, “A Special Report: The Wildlands Project Unleashes It’s War On Mankind,” 1996 • (The Kyoto Protocol is) the first component of an authentic global government. • French President Jacques Chirac, 2000

But some politicians are singing a different tune: • Man-made global warming is a hoax that threatens our future and the future of our children. Environmentalism is the new communism. • Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic and new leader of the European Union

Author Elaine Dewar (Cloak of Green): • Advertised as the World’s Greatest Summit, (the 1992) Rio Earth Summit was publically described as a global negotiation to reconcile the need for environmental protection with the need for economic growth. (Insiders) understood that there were other deeper goals…. The shift of national regulatory powers to vast regional authorities; the opening of all remaining closed national economies to multinational interests; the strengthening of decision making structures far above and far below the grasp of newly minted national democracies, and the integration of the Soviet and Chinese empires into the global market system…. a very grand agenda- the Global Governance Agenda.

Elaine Dewar continued: • “I was beginning to understand that the Rio Earth Summit was part of a Rockefeller-envisioned Global Governance Agenda that dated back before World War II, that it was linked to the regional trade agreements just being negotiated – the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Maastricht Treaty. Like the Stockholm Conference, it was all about integrating East and West.”

Problem: Many, probably most, politicians are scientifically illiterate: • We’re seeing the reality of a lot of the North Pole starting to evaporate, and we could get to a tipping point. Because if it evaporates to a certain point- they have lanes now where ships can go that couldn’t ever sail through before. And if it gets to a point where it evaporates too much, there’s a lot of tundra that’s being held down by that ice cap. • Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), chair of House Energy and Commerce Committee: • (Comment: This nonsensical statement indicates that Representative Waxman knows nothing about earth/climate processes and the real environmental issues involved.)

Former Vice President Al Gore • In a televised interview, Gore announced that the planet is in danger because in the past 3 million years, the north polar ice cap has completely melted. What is wrong with this statement? Over the north pole, there is no polar ice cap, only sea ice that forms seasonally over open ocean • Gore also stated that the center of the earth was millions of degrees. What ‘s wrong with this statement? Scientists estimate the temperature at the center of the earth at about 5,000 degrees C. If it were millions of degrees, like its in the sun, the earth would be a star.

Maurice Strong: Secretary-General of the United Nations’ Rio Earth Summit, founder of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), founder, president of Earth Council, co-author of the Earth Charter with Mikhail Gorbachev, etc. etc. etc. • “Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class- involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and sub-urban housing- are not sustainable….. Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”

Mikhail Gorbachev, Former Premier of the Soviet Union, State of the World Forum and co-author of the Earth Charter • The emerging “environmentalization” of our civilization and the need for vigorous action in the interest of the entire global community will inevitably have multiple political consequences. Perhaps the most important of them will be a gradual change in the status of the United Nations. Inevitably, it must assume some aspects of a world government….. • I envisage the principles of the Earth Charter to be a new form of the Ten Commandments. They lay the foundation a sustainable global earth community. • Nature is my god. To me, nature is sacred; trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals.

United Nations, Global Biodiversity Assessment: • A reasonable estimate for an industrialized world society at the present North American material standard of living would be 1 billion. At a more frugal European standard of living, 2 to 3 billion would be possible.

F. William Engdahl, “Disproof of Global Warming Hype,” 2008 • The recent global warming hysteria is in reality a geopolitical push by leading global elite circles to find a way to get the broader population to willingly accept drastic cuts in their living standards, something that were it demanded without clear reason by politicians, would spark strikes and protest. The UN’s latest IPCC report on Global Warming calls for diverting a huge 12% of global GDP to “prevent the harmful effects of climate change.” The UN report, for example, estimated that its recommendations to reduce certain manmade emissions would cost about $2,750 per family per year in the price of energy.

Perhaps it’s just the same old same old…. • Any city, however small, is in fact divided into two: one the city of the poor, the other of the rich: these are at war with one another. • Plato, Republic

Propaganda • “Those who manipulate the organized habits and opinions of the masses constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.” • Edward Bernays, Propaganda

Is there a problem with this scripted scenario? • It seems clear that “environmentalism” has been chosen as the new substitute for war. And 2012 seems to be a target date for global implementation of new global governance structures. • If so,however, why do still have so many wars? Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. • Is there schizophrenia amongst the ruling elite? • Or are several different strategies being run simultaneously?

Perhaps this is because the propaganda is not working • March 25, 2009 Gallup Poll: Global warming is clearly the environmental issue of least concern to Americans. In fact, global warming is the only issue for which more Americans say they have little to no concern than say they have a great deal of concern.

References • Abraham, L., and Sanders,F., 1993, The Greening: The Environmentalist’s Drive for Global Power, Double A Publications, Phoenix, Arizona, 308 pp. • Bernays, E., 1928, Propaganda. • Gay, R.F., and Engdahl, F.W., 2008, Disproof of the global warming hype- Mathematical proof there is no climate crisis, 4/7,2008 • Heywood, V. H., 1996, United Nations Global Biodiversity Assessment. • Kennan, G., 1970, To Prevent a World Wasteland- A Proposal, Foreign Affairs. • McNeil, J., 1991, Beyond Interdependence: The Meshing of the World’s Economy and the Earth’s Ecology • Special Study Group, 1967, The Report from Iron Mountain, Dial Press.

Origins of the modern Environmental Movement