May 1992 (vol. 8, #4) 1601 N Tucson Blvd #9, Tucson AZ 85716 c 1992 Physicians for Civil Defense

Will the upcoming United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) the ``Earth Summit'' be a Versailles, ending the world's war against the environment, as environmentalists hope?

Or will a ``successful'' Earth Summit be a ``Munich that will destroy the economic vitality of nations with market economies and start them down a green road to serfdom,'' the outcome considered more likely by free-market economists (CEI UpDate, March 1992)?

About 30,000 people from more than 130 nations, including representatives of some 3,000 environmentalist organizations, are expected to attend the meeting in Rio de Janeiro this June. Helping to set the agenda is Lester Brown, president of the WorldWatch Institute and coauthor of State of the World 1992.

According to Brown, ``Building an environmentally sustainable future ... requires restructuring the global economy, dramatically changing human reproductive behavior, and altering values and lifestyles. Doing all this quickly requires nothing short of a revolution (Human Events, 2/29/92).''

Agenda 21

Global restructuring involves implementation of Agenda 21, an 800-page ``international environmental cleanup plan.'' The centerpiece is a commitment to freezing emissions of ``greenhouse gases'' by the year 2000. To carry out this agenda, the Third World will require $125 billion annually in foreign assistance ($70 billion more than they currently receive). Aid would be channeled through the World Bank, despite the Bank's history of funding ecological destruction and corrupt, oppressive government bureaucracies (CEI UpDate).

The amount of aid to Third World countries has been a sticking point with the European Economic Community. And the USA is accused of ``gutting'' the proposed treaty on global warming. So far, the US has been reluctant to surrender its sovereignty to international controls that could cripple an already ailing economy (for example, by forcing a reduction of carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels). The price tag for abating CO₂ could run as high as $600 billion per year, according to UNCED Secretary-General Maurice Strong.

President Bush is under increasing pressure to attend the Summit and fulfill his promise to become the ``Environmental President.'' Supporters of the ``sustainable development'' agenda include the Environmental Protection Agency and more than 200 corporations including DuPont (Issues in Science and Technology, Spring, 1992).

Enforcement

The imposition of a revolutionary change in lifestyle is likely to provoke some resistance. How will it be enforced?

Article 43 of the UN Charter calls on all members of the UN to make forces available to the Security Council under ``special agreements'' for the maintenance of international peace and security in effect giving the Council a standing army. One proposal to the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy on defining a New World Order calls for the Security Council to use Article 43 to acquire a 500,000-member ``standing reserve peace force.'' (NY Times 1/31/92).

This year, the UN will spend as much as $3.7 billion on 77,000 blue-helmeted troops. Never before have UN troops been committed to so many costly and diverse missions (McAlvaney Intelligence Advisor 4/92).

Recently, the Security Council expanded the definition of ``threats to peace and security'' to include ``non-military sources of instability in the economic, social, humanitarian, and ecological fields'' (NY Times 2/1/92).

In setting (and enforcing) global environmental policy, the decisionmakers confront some troubling uncertainties, for example, whether or not ``global warming'' will actually occur. Alton Frye, Vice President and Washington Director of the Council on Foreign Relations, suggests using Cold War methods to ``spy'' on the environment to acquire scientific knowledge firm enough for setting strict limits on greenhouse gases. This could be a practical way in which ``the cold war's demise opened up a new and more promising era of cooperation among nations and finally enabled the United Nations to break free from the political paralysis that has hindered it for most of its 46 years of existence'' (NY Times 2/1/92).

The government possesses vast quantities of unevaluated data from surveillance satellites and aircraft. To date, the Environmental Protection Agency and scientific agencies have not had access to classified data. Recently, Congress has appropriated $200 million for applying defense resources to environmental purposes, and CIA Director Robert Gates has authorized a ``scouting party'' of independent scientists to investigate the use of intelligence data for environmental study. The enforcement applications are left to the reader's imagination.

Students of history will remember that the United Nations has been consistently anti-American. And that Versailles and Munich were both disasters that led to war.

The Dawn of a New Order

A Pro-nuclear war viewpoint: ``We have wished, we ecofreaks, for a disaster or for a social change to come and bomb us into the Stone Age, where we might live like Indians in our valley, with our localism, our appropriate technology, our gardens, our homemade religion guilt-free at last!'' [Possibly the same goal could be accomplished through the UN, without need for a nuclear war Ed.]

Stewart Brand, Whole Earth Catalogue

``Industrial civilization is acne on the face of Gaia.''

Merlin Stone, author of When God Was a Woman.

``Human suffering is much less important than the suffering of the planet.''

David Brower, founder of Friends of the Earth