by Henry Lamb –
Sovereignty International, Inc
Special Report
http://sovereignty.net/p/sd/sd-transform.html
September 12, 2009
(Written in December 2005)
As the “sustainable development” movement
continues to gain momentum, it is worthwhile to step back and take a long look
at the big picture, painted with a broad brush to reveal what the United States
might look like as the movement’s vision is more fully implemented over the next
50 years or so.The picture painted here is based on
official documents published by several government agencies and non-government
organizations during the last decade. These documents were rarely reported in
the news, and average working people have no idea what sustainable development
really means, and even less knowledge of what is in store for the future. If the
vision of sustainable development continues to unfold as it has in the last
decade, life in the United States will be quite different in the future.The Vision
Half the land area of the entire country
will be designated “wilderness areas,” where only wildlife managers and
researchers will be allowed. These areas will be interconnected by “corridors of
wilderness” to allow migration of wildlife, without interference by human
activity. Wolves will be as plentiful in Virginia and Pennsylvania as they are
now in Idaho and Montana. Panthers and alligators will roam freely from the
Everglades to the Okefenokee and beyond.Surrounding these wilderness areas and
corridors, designated “buffer zones” will be managed for “conservation
objectives.” The primary objective is “restoration and rehabilitation.”
Rehabilitation involves the repair of damaged ecosystems, while restoration
usually involves the reconstruction of natural or semi-natural ecosystems. As
areas are restored and rehabilitated, they are added to the wilderness
designation, and the buffer zone is extended outward.Buffer zones are surrounded by what is
called “zones of cooperation.” This is where people live – in “sustainable
communities.” Sustainable communities are defined by strict “urban growth
boundaries.” Land outside the growth boundaries will be managed by government
agencies, which grant permits for activities deemed to be essential and
sustainable. Open space, to provide a “viewshed” and sustainable recreation for
community residents will abut the urban boundaries. Beyond the viewshed,
sustainable agricultural activities will be permitted, to support the food
requirements of nearby communities.Sustainable communities of the future will
bear little resemblance to the towns and cities of the 20th century.
Single-family homes will be rare. Housing will be provided by public/private
partnerships, funded by government, and managed by non-government “Home Owners
Associations.” Housing units will be designed to provide most of the
infrastructure and amenities required by the residents. Shops and office space
will be an integral part of each unit, and housing will be allocated on a
priority basis to people who work in the unit – with quotas to achieve ethnic
and economic balance. Schools, daycare, and recreation facilities will be
provided. Each unit will be designed for bicycle and foot traffic, to reduce, if
not eliminate, the need for people to use automobiles.Transportation between sustainable
communities, for people and for commodities, will be primarily by light rail
systems, designed to bridge wilderness corridors where necessary. The highways
that remain will be super transport corridors, such as the “Trans-Texas
Corridor” now being designed, which will eventually reach from Mexico to Canada.
These transport corridors will also be designed to bridge wilderness corridors,
and to minimize the impact on the environment.Government, too, will be different in a
sustainable America. Human activity is being reorganized around ecoregions,
which do not respect county or state boundaries. Therefore, the governing
apparatus will be designed to regulate the activities within the entire region,
rather than having multiple governing jurisdictions with services duplicated in
each political subdivision. It is far more efficient to have regional governing
authorities with centrally administered services.The Sierra Club, one of hundreds of
non-government organizations actively working to bring about this
transformation, has suggested that North America be divided into 21 ecoregions,
that ignore existing national, state, and county boundaries. In 1992, they
published a special issue of their magazine which featured a map, and extensive
descriptions of how these ecoregions should be managed.
(1)The function of government will also
change. The legislative function, especially at the local and state level, will
continue to diminish in importance, while the administrative function will grow.
Already, in some parts of the country, counties are combining, and city and
county governments are consolidating. Regional governing authorities are
developing; taking precedence over the participating counties, which will
eventually evaporate. State governments will undergo similar attrition; as
regulations are developed on an ecoregions basis, there will be less need for
separate state legislation. The administrative functions of state governments
will also collapse into a super-regional administrative unit, to eliminate
unnecessary duplication of investment and services.The Reality
This vision is quite attractive to many
Americans, especially those born since 1970, who have been educated in the
public school system. To these people, nothing is more important than saving the
planet from the certain catastrophe that lies ahead, if people are allowed to
continue their greedy abuse of natural resources. The public school system, and
the media, have been quite successful is shaping new attitudes and values to
support this vision of how the world should be.This vision did not suddenly spring from
the mind of a Hollywood screenwriter. It has been evolving for most of the last
century. Since the early 1960s, it has been gaining momentum. The rise of the
environmental movement became the magnet which attracted several disparate
elements of social change, now coalesced into a massive global movement,
euphemistically described as sustainable development.The first Wilderness Act was adopted in
1964, which set aside nine million acres of wilderness so “our posterity could
see what our forefathers had to conquer,” as one Senator put it. Now, after 40
years, 106.5 million acres are officially designated as wilderness.
(2) At least eight bills have been introduced in the 109th Congress to add
more wilderness to the system. (3) And every year, Congress
is asked to designate more and more land as wilderness. Most of this land is
already a part of a global system of ecoregions, recognized internationally as
“Biosphere Reserves.”In the United States, there are 47
Biosphere Reserves, so designated by the United Nations Education, Science, and
Cultural Organization, (4) which are a part of a global
network of 482 Biosphere Reserves. This global network is the basis for
implementing the U.N.’s Convention on Biological Diversity, (5)
a treaty which the U.S. Senate chose not to ratify. (6) The
1140-page instruction book for implementing this treaty, Global Biodiversity
Assessment, provides graphic details about how society should be organized, and
how land and resources should be managed, in order to make the world
sustainable. This treaty was formulated by U.N. agencies and non-government
organizations between 1981 and 1992, when it was formally adopted by the U.N.
Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro.Consider this instruction from the Global
Biodiversity Assessment:“…representative areas of all
major ecosystems in a region need to be reserved, that blocks should be as
large as possible, that buffer zones should be established around core
areas, and that corridors should connect these areas. This basic design is
central to the recently proposed Wildlands Project in the United States.”
(7)Now consider “this basic design” as
described in the Wildlands Project:“…that at least half of the
land area of the 48 conterminous states should be encompassed in core
reserves and inner corridor zones (essentially extensions of core reserves)
within the next few decades…. Nonetheless, half of a region in wilderness
is a reasonable guess of what it will take to restore viable populations of
large carnivores and natural disturbance regimes, assuming that most of the
other 50 percent is managed intelligently as buffer zones. Eventually, a
wilderness network would dominate a region…with human habitations being
the islands. The native ecosystem and the collective needs of non-human
species must take precedence over the needs and desires of humans.”
(8)Even though this treaty was not ratified
by the United States, it is being effectively implemented by the agencies of
government through the “Ecosystem Management Policy.” The U.S. Forest service is
actively working to identify and secure wilderness corridors to connect existing
core wilderness areas. (9)Both state and federal governments have
enacted legislation in recent years to provide for systematic acquisition of
“open space,” land suitable for restoration and rehabilitation, to expand
wilderness areas, and to provide “viewsheds” beyond urban boundaries.In the last days of the Clinton
Administration, the Forest Service adopted the “Roadless Area Conservation
Rule,” which identified 58.5 million acres from which access and logging roads
were to be removed. In the West, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land
Management are driving ranchers off the land by reducing grazing allotments to
numbers that make profitable operations impossible. Inholders, people who have
recreational cabins on federal land, are discovering that their permits are not
being renewed. The Fish and Wildlife Service is forcing people off their land
through designations of “wetlands,” and “critical habitat” which render the land
unusable for profit-making activities.Much to the chagrin of the proponents of
sustainable development, some of these policies have been slowed, but not
reversed, by the Bush administration. Nevertheless, agencies of government,
supported by an army of non-government organizations, continue to transform the
landscape into the vision described in the Wildlands Project, and in the Global
Biodiversity Assessment.Other agencies of government are working
with equal diligence, to create the “islands of human habitation,” otherwise
called sustainable communities. The blueprint for these communities was also
adopted at the 1992 U.N. Conference in Rio de Janeiro. Its title is “Agenda 21.”
This 300-page document contains 40 chapters loaded with recommendations to
govern virtually every facet of human existence. Agenda 21 is not a treaty. It
is a “soft law” policy document which was signed by President George H.W. Bush,
and which does not require Senate ratification.One of the recommendations contained in
the document is that each nation establish a national council to implement the
rest of the recommendations. On June 29, 1993, President Bill Clinton issued
Executive Order Number 12852 which created the President’s Council on
Sustainable Development. (10) Its 25 members included most
Cabinet Secretaries, representatives from The Nature Conservancy, the Sierra
Club and other non-government organizations, and a few representatives from
industry.The PCSD set out to implement the
recommendations of Agenda 21 administratively, where possible, and to secure new
legislation when necessary. One of the publications of the Council is
“Sustainable Communities, Report of the Sustainable Communities Task Force.”
(11) This document, in very generalized language, makes sustainable
communities sound like the perfect solution to all the world’s ills. Another
document, however, describes in much more precise detail exactly what
sustainable communities will be. This document was prepared by the Department of
Housing and Urban Development as a report to the U.N. Conference on Human
Settlements in Istanbul, June, 1996.This report says that current lifestyles
in the United States will “…demolish much of nature’s diversity and stability,
unless a re-balance can be attained – an urban-rural industrial re-balance with
ecology, as a fundamental paradigm of authentic, meaningful national/global
human security.” (12)This highly detailed 25-page report goes
on to describe the sustainable community of the future:“…Community Sustainability
Infrastructures [designed for] efficiency and livability that encourages:
in-fill over sprawl: compactness, higher density low-rise residential:
transit-oriented (TODs) and pedestrian-oriented development (PODs): bicycle
circulation networks; work-to-home proximity; mixed-use-development:
co-housing, housing over shops, downtown residential; inter-modal
transportation malls and facilities …where trolleys, rapid transit, trains
and biking, walking and hiking are encouraged by infrastructures.”“For this hopeful future we may
envision an entirely fresh set of infrastructures that use fully automated,
very light, elevated rail systems for daytime metro region travel and
nighttime goods movement, such as have been conceptualized and being
positioned for production at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis; we
will see all settlements linked up by extensive bike, recreation and
agro-forestry “E-ways” (environment-ways) such as in Madison, Wisconsin; we
will find healthy, productive soils where there is [now] decline and
erosion, through the widespread use of remineralization from igneous and
volcanic rock sources (much of it the surplus quarry fines, or “rockdust”,
from concrete and asphalt-type road construction or from reservoir silts);
we will be growing foods, dietary supplements and herbs that make over our
unsustainable reliance upon foods and medicines that have adverse soil,
environmental, or health side-effects. Less and less land will go for animal
husbandry, and more for grains, tubers and legumes.”
(13)Sustainable communities cannot emerge as
the natural outgrowth of free people making individual choices in a free market
economy. Nor can they be mandated in the United States, as they might be in
nations that live under dictatorial rule. Therefore, the PCSD developed a
strategy to entice or coerce local communities to begin the transition to
sustainability.The EPA provided challenge grants,
and visioning grants to communities that would undertake the process toward
sustainability. Grants were also made available to selected non-government
organizations to launch a visioning process in local communities. This process
relies on a trained facilitator who uses a practiced, “consensus building” model
to lead selected community participants in the development of “community
vision.” This vision inevitably sets forth a set of goals – each of which can be
found in the recommendations of Agenda 21 – that become the basis for the
development of a comprehensive community plan.
(14)According to the International Council for
Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), 6,400 local communities in 113
countries have become involved in the sustainable communities Local Agenda 21
process since 1995. (15) ICLEI is one of several
international non-government organizations whose mission is to promote
sustainable development and sustainable communities at the local level. Dozens
of similar national NGOs are at work all across the United States. A cursory
search on the term “sustainable communities” through Google or Yahoo will return
a staggering number of responses.
The federal government deepened its
involvement in the transformation of America by providing millions of dollars in
grants to the American Planning Association to develop model legislation which
embodies the principles of sustainable development. The publication, Growing
Smart Legislative Guidebook: Model Statutes for Planning and the Management of
Change, provides model legislation to be adopted by states. Typically, this
legislation, when adopted, requires the creation of a statewide comprehensive
land use plan that defines the administrative mechanisms for regional government
agencies, and provides planning models for counties to use in creating
county-wide land use plans. Municipalities within the county are required to
produce a plan that conforms with, and is integrated into the county and state
plans. (16)
Using the coercive power of the federal
budget, which the PCSD describes as using “financial incentives and
disincentives,” the federal government had little trouble getting states to rush
to adopt some form of the model legislation. The state of Wisconsin, for
examples, says this about its comprehensive planning act:“The Comprehensive Planning Law was
developed in response to the widely held view that state planning laws were
outdated and inconsistent with the current needs of Wisconsin communities.
Commonly recognized as Wisconsin’s “Smart Growth” legislation, significant
changes to planning-related statutes were approved through the 1999-2001
state biennial budget. Under the new law, any program or action of a town,
village, city, county, or regional planning commission, after January 1,
2010, that affects land use must be guided by, and consistent with, an
adopted Comprehensive Plan, s. 66. 1001, Wis. Stats.” (17)
The APA’s Legislative Guidebook offers
several forms of the model legislation. States have considerable latitude in the
legislation that is adopted. Consequently, each state’s legislation may be
different, and may impose different requirements on county and city governments.
Regardless of the difference, however, they all contain the basic principles set
forth in Agenda 21, and they all require the development of plans that result in
the implementation of the recommendations contained in Agenda 21.One of the fundamental elements of all the
plans requires limiting development (growth) to certain areas within the county.
Planners draw lines on maps, supposedly to prevent development in
“environmentally sensitive” areas, but which, in fact, are often quite arbitrary
and sometimes influenced by political considerations. The value of land inside
the development areas skyrockets, while the value of land outside the
development areas plummets – with no hope of future appreciation.Another common element of these plans is
to limit the activity that may occur within the various plan designations. In
King County, Washington, for example, property owners in some parts of the
county are required to leave 65% of their land unused, in its “natural”
condition.“Known as the 65-10 Rule, it
calls for landowners to set aside 65 percent of their property and keep it
in its natural, vegetative state. According to the rule, nothing can be
built on this land, and if a tree is cut down, for example, it must be
replanted. Building anything is out of the question.”
(18)These plans also focus on reducing
automobile use. Measures sometimes include making driving less convenient by
constructing speed bumps and obstructive center diversions on residential
streets, prohibiting single occupant use of certain traffic lanes, as well as a
variety of extra “tax” measures for auto use. Oregon is experimenting with a
mileage tax, based on miles driven. London has imposed a special tax on
automobiles that enter a designated “high traffic area.” Several U.S. cities are
studying this idea. Santa Cruz, California’s plan seeks to ban auto use in
certain municipal areas. Hundreds of NGOs have popped up to form a “World
Carfree Network” (19) which lobbies local officials to
reduce or eliminate auto use.Alternative transportation is another
common element of these plans. Light rail is a favorite, even in communities
that have no hope of achieving economic viability. Proponents of sustainable
development argue that even if a light rail system has to be subsidized forever,
it is a bargain just to get automobiles off the streets. Bicycle paths and
“Trails” are always a substantial part of sustainable community plans.Housing in sustainable communities
presents special problems. Space limitations, imposed by growth boundaries,
force higher densities and smaller housing units. The term “McMansions” has been
coined to describe new homes that are larger than necessary, as determined by
sustainable development enthusiasts. Multiple housing units are preferred over
single-family structures. Since sustainable communities cannot grow
horizontally, they must grow vertically – if they grow at all.These problems have produced a variety of
responses. Some of the new terms that are becoming common in sustainable
communities are: Limited Equity Co-ops; Resident-controlled Rentals; Co-housing;
Mutual Housing; and many others. (20) Invariably, these
schemes are alternatives to the conventional single-family home. Most often,
these schemes vest ownership in a corporation that owns the housing units, and
residents may, but not always, own shares of the corporation. Living conditions
are determined, not by the individual resident, but by the corporation.
Financing for the construction of these units, typically requires construction
to meet “sustainable” standards, if federal money is used, either directly or
indirectly, as in a mortgage guarantee.Single family homes and business
structures that already exist when a community is transformed to sustainability
are a special problem, since they rarely meet the criteria required by the
comprehensive plan. APA’s Legislative Guidebook offers a new solution for this
problem: “Amortization of Non-Conforming Uses.” This means that a city or county
may designate a period of time in which existing structures must be brought into
conformity with the new regulations.“But for homeowners who live in
a community that adopts the Guidebook’s vision, the APA amortization
proposal means the extinguishing, over time, of their right to occupy their
houses, and without just compensation for loss of that property. How long
they have before they must forfeit their homes would be completely up to the
local government.” (21)Eminent domain is another tool used by
government to bring their communities into compliance with the sustainable
communities vision. With increasing frequency, governments have used this
technique to take land, not for “public use,” as required by the U.S.
Constitution, but for whatever the government deems to be a “public benefit.”
(22) Governments may condemn and seize the private property of an
individual, and then give, or sell it, to another private owner who promises to
use the property in a way that satisfies the government’s vision.Plans adopted at the local level can have
extremely detailed requirements. It is not unusual for these plans to specify
the types of vegetation that must be used for landscaping, the color of paint to
be used – inside and outside the structure, and even the types of appliances and
fixtures that must be used. Businesses can be required to use signs that conform
in size and color to all the other signs in the neighborhood. There is virtually
no limit to the restrictions that these plans may impose.These comprehensive plans are often
complicated by an assortment of sub-authorities, such as Historic Districts;
Conservation Districts; Economic Development Districts; Scenic Highways and
Byways; Scenic Rivers and Streams; and more. These quasi-government agencies are
most often created by ordinance, and populated with political appointees. They
are frequently given unwarranted authority to dictate the use of private
property within their jurisdiction. Individuals caught up in conflict with these
agencies are often frustrated by the indifference of elected officials, and
financially drained by the legal costs required to resist their dictates.In one form or another, sustainable
development has reached every corner of the United States. It has impacted
millions of Americans, most of whom have no idea that their particular problem
is related to a global initiative launched more than 15 years ago, by the United
Nations. Many, if not most of the bureaucrats at the local and state level,
charged with implementing these policies, have no knowledge of their origin.
What’s worse, few people have considered the possible negative consequences of
these policies.Consequences of Sustainable
DevelopmentWhat is perhaps the most serious
consequence of sustainable development is the least visible: the transformation
of the policy-making process. The idea that government is empowered by the
consent of the governed is the idea that set the United States apart from all
previous forms of government. It is the principle that unleashed individual
creativity and free markets, which launched the spectacular rise of the world’s
most successful nation. The idea, and the process by which citizens can reject
laws they don’t want, simply by replacing the officials who enacted them, makes
the ballot box the source of power for every citizen, and the point of
accountability for every politician.When public policy is made by elected
officials who are accountable to the people who are governed, then government is
truly empowered by the consent of the governed. Sustainable development has
designed a process through which public policy is designed by professionals and
bureaucrats, and implemented administratively, with only symbolic, if any,
participation by elected officials. The professionals and bureaucrats who
actually make the policies are not accountable to the people who are governed by
them.This is the “new collaborative decisions
process,” called for by the PCSD. (23) Because the policies
are developed at the top, by professionals and bureaucrats, and sent down the
administrative chain of command to state and local governments, elected
officials have little option but to accept them. Acceptance is further ensured
when these policies are accompanied by “economic incentives and disincentives,”
along with lobbying and public relations campaigns coordinated by
government-funded non-government organizations.Higher housing costs are an immediate,
visible consequence of sustainable development. Land within the urban growth
boundary jumps in value because supply is limited, and continues to increase
disproportionately in value as growth continues to extinguish supply. These
costs must be reflected in the price of housing. Add to this price pressure, the
regulatory requirements to use “green seal” materials; that is, materials that
are certified, either by government or a designated non-government organization,
to have been produced by methods deemed to be “sustainable.”Higher taxes are another immediate,
visible, and inevitable consequence of sustainable development. Higher land
values automatically result in higher tax bills. Sustainable development plans
include another element that affects property taxes. Invariably, these plans
call for the acquisition of land for open space, for parks, for greenways, for
bike-and- hike trails, for historic preservation, and many other purposes. Every
piece of property taken out of the private sector by government acquisition,
forces the tax burden to be distributed over fewer taxpayers. The inevitable
result is a higher rate for each remaining taxpayer.Another consequence of sustainable
development is the gross distortion of justice. Bureaucrats who draw lines on
maps create instant wealth for some people, while prohibiting others from
realizing any gain on their investments. In communities across the country,
people who live outside the downtown area have lived with the expectation that
one day, they could fund their retirement by selling their land to new home
owners as the nearby city expanded. A line drawn on a map steals this
expectation from people who live outside the urban growth boundary. Proponents
of sustainable development are forced to argue that the greater good for the
community is more important than negative impacts on any individual. There is no
equal justice, when government arbitrarily takes value from one person and
assigns it to another.Nowhere is this injustice more visible
than when eminent domain is used to implement sustainable development plans. The
Kelo vs. The City of New London case brought the issue to public awareness, but
in cities throughout the nation, millions of people are being displaced, with no
hope of finding affordable housing, in the new, “sustainable” community. In
Florida, this situation is particularly acute. Retirees have flocked to Florida
and settled in mobile home parks to enjoy their remaining days, living on fixed
incomes, too old or infirm to think about a new income producing career. Local
governments across the state are condemning these parks, and evicting the
residents, in order to use the land for development that fits the comprehensive
plan, and which produces a higher tax yield. These people are the victims of the
“greater good,” as envisioned by the proponents of sustainable development.Less visible, but no less important, is
the erosion of individual freedom. Until the emergence of sustainable
development, a person’s home was considered to be his castle. William Pitt
expressed this idea quite powerfully in Parliament in 1763, when he said:”The poorest man may in his
cottage bid defiance to all the force of the crown. It may be frail – its
roof may shake – the wind may blow through it – the storm may enter, the
rain may enter – but the King of England cannot enter – all his force dares
not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement.”
(24)No more. Sustainable development allows
king-government to intrude into a person’s home before it becomes his home, and
dictate the manner and style to which the home must conform. Sustainable
development forces the owner of an existing home to transform his home into a
vision that is acceptable to king-government. Sustainable development is
extinguishing individual freedom for the “greater good,” as determined by
king-government.Conclusion
The question that must be asked is: will
sustainable development really result in economic prosperity, environmental
protection, and social equity for the current generation, without compromising
the ability of future generations to meet their own needs? (25)
Even in the early days of this
century-long transition to sustainability, there is growing evidence that the
fundamental flaws in the concept will likely produce the opposite of the desired
goals. Forests that have been taken out of productive use in order to conform to
the vision of sustainable development have been burned to cinders, annihilating
wildlife, including species deemed to be “endangered,” resulting in the opposite
of “environmental protection.” Government- imposed restrictions on resource use
in land that is now designated “wilderness,” or “buffer zones” have resulted in
shortages, accompanied by rapid price increases that result in the opposite of
“economic prosperity.” In sustainable communities, it is the poorest of the poor
who are cast out of their homes to make way for the planners’ visions; these
victims would not define the experience as “social equity.”Detailed academic studies show that
housing costs rise inevitably as sustainable development is implemented. Traffic
congestion is often worsened after sustainable development measures are
installed. (26) And always, private property rights and
individual freedom are diminished or extinguished.Sustainable development is a concept
constructed on the principle that government has the right and the
responsibility to regulate the affairs of people to achieve government’s vision
of the greatest good for all.The United States is founded on the
principle that government has no rights or responsibility not specifically
granted to it by the people who are governed. These two concepts cannot long
coexist. One principle, or the other, will eventually dominate. For the last 15
years, sustainable development has been on the ascendency, permeating state and
local governments across the land. Only in the last few years have ordinary
people begun to realize that sustainable development is a global initiative,
imposed by the highest levels of government. People are just beginning to get a
glimpse of the magnitude of the transformation of America that is underway.The question that remains unanswered is:
will Americans accept this new sustainable future that has been planned for them
and imposed upon them?. Or, as Americans have done in the past, will they rise
up in defense of their freedom, and demand that their elected officials force
the bureaucrats and professionals to return to the role of serving the people
who pay their salaries, by administering policies enacted only by elected
officials, rather than conspiring to set the policies by which all the people
must live.
Endnotes
http://www.sierraclub.org/ecoregions/
2.
Wilderness.net (http://www.wilderness.net/index.cfm?fuse=NWPS&sec=fastFacts),
a project of the Wilderness Institute, the Arthur Carhart National Wilderness
Training Center, and the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute. (October
27, 2005)3.
Campaign for America’s Wilderness (http://www.leaveitwild.org/psapp/view_art.asp?PEB_ART_ID=397)
(As of May 1, 2005)4.
See Eco-logic Powerhouse, November, 2005, and
http://eco.freedom.org/el/20020302/biosphere.shtml5.
Agenda Item 1(7), Report of the First Meeting of the Subsidiary
Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice, Conference of the
Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, Second Meeting, 6-17
November, Jakarta, Indonesia, (UNEP/CBD/COP2/5, September 21, 1995).See also:
http://www.freedom.org/prc/legis/hr901test.htm.6.
“How the Convention on Biological Diversity was Defeated,”
Sovereignty International, Inc, 1998 –
http://sovereignty.freedom.org/p/land/biotreatystop.htm .7.
“Measures for conservation of biodiversity and Sustainable Use of
its Components,” Global Biodiversity Assessment, Cambridge University Press for
the United Nations Environment Program, Section 13.4.2.2.3, p. 993.
8.
Reed F. Noss, “The Wildlands Project,” Wild Earth, Special Issue,
1992, pp.13- 15. (Wild Earth is published by the Cenozoic Society, P.O. Box 492,
Canton, NY 13617).9.
Report to the Interagency Grizzly Bear Working Group on Wildlife
Linkage Habitat, Prepared by Bill Ruediger, Endangered Species Program Leader,
USDA Forest Service, Northern Region, Missoula, MT, February 1, 2001. See also:
http://www.eco.freedom.org/el/20020202/linkage.shtml.10.
See:
http://clinton4.nara.gov/PCSD/11.
See:
http://clinton4.nara.gov/PCSD/Publications/suscomm/ind_suscom.html
12.
“Community Sustainability; Agendas for Choice-making and Action,”
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, September 22, 1995. See also:
http://eco.freedom.org/reports/sdagenda.html14.
See
http://eco.freedom.org/col/?i=1997/9 And
http://www.sovereignty.net/p/sd/suscom.htm For a discussion of the consensus
process, and sustainable communities.15.
International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives web
site, October 28, 2005 (http://www.iclei.org/index.php?id=798)
16.
Summary of the Growing Smart Legislative Guidebook, 2002 Edition,
(http://www.planning.org/growingsmart/summary.htm)
17.
State of Wisconsin, Department of Administration web site:
http://www.doa.state.wi.us/pagesubtext_detail.asp?linksubcatid=366
18.
FoxNews.com, July 10, 2004
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,124358,00.html19.
See
http://www.worldcarfree.net/links/traf.php.20.
See
http://www.worldcarfree.net/links/traf.php for descriptions of these housing
alternatives.21.
“Forfeiting the American Dream: The HUD-Funded Smart Growth
Guidebook’s Attack on Homeownership,” The Heritage Foundation (http://www.heritage.org/Research/SmartGrowth/BG1565.cfm),
July 2, 2002.22.
“Eminent domain; eminent disaster,” Eco-logic Powerhouse, August,
2005 (http://www.eco.freedom.org/articles/maguire-805.shtml)
, for a discussion on this issue.23.
President’s Council on Sustainable Development, We Believe
Statement #8
http://sovereignty.freedom.org/p/sd/PCSD-webelieve.htm24.
William Pitt, the elder, Earl of Chatham, speech in the House of
Lords.–Henry Peter Brougham, Historical Sketches of Statesmen Who Flourished in
the Time of George III, vol. 1, p. 52 (1839). (http://www.bartleby.com/73/861.html)
25.
Sustainable Development as defined by the U.N.’s Bruntland
Commission report, Our Common Future, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987),
p. 4326.
This website,
http://www.demographia.com/dbr-ix.htm provides an abundance of reports and
studies that challenge effectiveness of sustainable development.