Replies

Agenda 21 of the Earth Charter:

Local Agenda 21- United Nations Association and ACTION (Agenda 21 Community Team Work in Operation).

The original stakeholders began to "envision a sustainable future," choose compatible "partners", and organize the twelve Round Tables which evolved into twelve Special Focus Areas (for summaries of each plan, read Local Agenda 21 Pt.2 -Santa Cruz - Key points from the twelve Focus Groups):

Agriculture
Biodiversity & Ecosystem Management
Education
Energy
Housing
Population
Public Health
Resources and Recycling
Social Justice
Toxic Technology & Waste Management
Transportation
Viable Economy

Each item is linked to special interest groups, non-governmental organizations, and globalist advocates who have been given authority (by no elected official) to plan the regulations that will control our lives.

Special interest groups that donate to this Agenda includes feminist, globalist, environmental, and welfare organizations such as the Sierra Club, Earthlinks, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Greener Alternatives, Pacific Bell, Peace Child, United Nations Association-USA, Environmental Ecological Services, Change Management System, Countywide Joint Task Force on Sexual Harassment, Prevention and Education, and the Human Care Alliance (about 80 service providers and community groups), and the Welfare and Low-Income Support Network.

The National Organization for Women (NOW), The Regional Alliance for Progressive Policy, Women's International League for Peace & Freedom, and Beyond Beijing (primarily feminists who attended the 1995 UN Conference on Women) are all part of a Task Force helping establish the guidelines for the Social Justice (Equity) and welfare branch of the Agenda. According to Local Agenda 21-Santa Cruz, their focus is the exploration of viable means to "alleviate the violence of poverty."

To eliminate poverty and to create the laws and incentives that will establish environmental, social and economic "equity", the people must embrace the new paradigm (or world view). They must accept the new global values touted by the GBA and learn to see social issues from a global perspective. "Local efforts should focus on community education and outreach, grassroots organizing, and monitoring the impacts of federal welfare reform implementation," states Santa Cruz' Local Agenda 21 Action Plan.

UNESCO and the Earth Charter

The Earth Charter
The Earth Charter and Sustainable Development

The Earth Charter is the outcome of an extensive process of worldwide consultation and dialogue with civil society, under the leadership of some of the most distinguished figures of the international community, including former president Mikhail Gorbachev and Maurice Strong, is now undoubtedly one of the most powerful instruments for promoting the changes in our ways of life which must take place irrespective of any differences that may exist between us and which are driven principally by the imperative need to conserve life on earth.

The principles emphasized by the Charter are of the utmost importance:
- To preserve humankind in its integrity, unity and diversity must be reconciled.
- The recognition of others is the foundation of all relationships and all peace.
- Acceptance of the constraints imposed by preservation of the common good is indispensable to the exercise of freedom.
- Material development must advance human development.
- Innovation is not an aim in itself; it is a means to serve human development and the safeguarding of the planet.

Clearly then, planetary unity is the minimum national requirement of an ever more circumscribed and interdependent world. However, if such unity is to be achieved, we need to acquire awareness and a genuine sense of shared ownership which binds us – as has been stated by the eminent thinker Edgar Morin in the "Seven complex lessons in education for the future" (published by UNESCO in 1999) – to the earth, as our first and last home. If the concept of home includes the idea of commonality, a relationship of affective affiliation and a shared destiny, then we can accept the concept of the Earth as our Home.

As human beings we all experience nowadays the same basic problems of life and death and have as a community the same planetary destiny. Hence the urgent need to learn to become part of the planet. If that is to happen, education has to be seen as the main means of bringing about change and affirming values, attitudes and behaviour. To learn to become part of the planet involves many challenges: learning to live, share and communicate; learning also to be, but not just to be part of a culture but also to be inhabitants of this planet.

Website

Earth Charter Initiative
The Earth Charter Initiative is a global movement based on the participation and involvement of thousands of organizations, groups and individuals worldwide. The International Secretariat, its partner organizations, the volunteer National Committees, and the governing bodies of the Secretariat are collectively referred to as the Earth Charter Initiative.
> Visit the website