Introduction to Agenda 21

Agenda 21 has become something of a legend in modern news lore.  It has become fodder for conspiracy theorists and environmental advocates alike.  However, very few people actually know what Agenda 21 really is and what it actually stands for or does.  Despite the fact that the documentation associated with Agenda 21 is freely available for the world to see online, it is rare that someone actually delve into it to discover how it really affects the world, their country or their lives.

What is Agenda 21?

Wikipedia defines Agenda 21 as the following:

Agenda 21 is a non-binding, voluntarily implemented action plan of the United Nations with regards to sustainable development.

To clear things up, Agenda 21 is NOT an evil plot devised by a mad scientist or secret agent in a B movie.  Agenda 21 is a 300 page, 40 Chapter document that attempts to highlight the reasons for and methodologies behind sustainable development.  This is further divided into a Preamble and 4 distinct sections having to do with everything from socioeconomic “dimensions” to actually implementing the ideas in the document.  Essentially, the 300 page document is a guideline for how participating countries can modify their use of their resources and people in order to have a sustainable future existence.

The problem is, because the document is so large, and not too many people know or care enough about it, it is hard to tell who or what the measures in the document serve to sustain.  Does the document attempt to ensure the sustainability of the normal way of life for standard middle-class citizens of the world or is it some kind of ultimate protection plan for the elites of the world?  Does it mean simply curbing levels of pollution or does it mean enacting huge amounts of CO2 emission or carbon taxes?  How is sustainable development defined in the document?  Who is really participating?  Is it REALLY non-binding or voluntary?  What is the potential affect of the contents of this plan/agenda on the average person’s life and future?

Right now, we can honestly say with complete honesty and integrity, we have no idea.  Sure, Newskeeper and I have seen the conspiracy stories and heard the New World Order claims about Agenda 21 but, neither one of us have actually read the thing.

Our Goal:

What Agenda 21 really says and does is what this series of articles hopes to address.  Over the coming weeks, months, and dare we say, possibly years, we will be doing a chapter by chapter analysis on Agenda 21.  Due to the fact that some parts of the document contain references to other UN documents and due to the fact that some parts are significantly longer and harder to interpret than others, there may be more than one post per chapter and this series WILL take a LONG time to get through.  There may be times when several chapters are looked at in a week and there may be other times when a reader won’t see something new on Agenda 21 for a month.

The fact is, this is a HUGE and complex piece of work.  It isn’t something one can simply sit down with, glass of beer or wine in hand, and read.  It is a government-written document written in legalese, in double-speak and referring to other documents that are written the same way.  It will be a lot of hours of hard work to break it down so that the average Joe can understand it.  However, we feel that this is an important document for the average person to know about and thus, it justifies the work.  Well, that and we also feel it is an important enough document that WE need to read it and know about it.

So keep an eye out for the Agenda 21 series of analysis articles in the future. We’ll strive to find what this document really says, and hopefully, we’ll find out that is isn’t as bad as everyone makes it out to be. On the other hand, we may very well find out that it is WORSE than everyone makes it out to be. Either way, we’ll be informed people at the end of this and should have some fun, or suffer an aneurism, along the way.