Quote:
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..."Agenda 21 or Freedom 21..."
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The organization Freedom 21 has put together a document in opposition to Agenda 21 entitled:
"Freedom21 Alternative to the U.N.'s Agenda 21 Program for Sustainable Development"
Here are the
Principles and Policy Recommendations, including references:
Principles
Population growth does not necessitate depleted resources, and there are currently no shortages of food, raw materials or energy. Nor is there anything to prevent increased production. People are human capital.
Overpopulation in the world is not a problem. The United Nations itself shows that population will peak at about 9 billion people around the year 2050. More people means more minds to produce innovations; not simply more mouths to feed.
High population densities don't cause poverty. There is no correlation between population density and poverty. There are, however, high correlations between denser populations and prosperous human specializations.
A vibrant free market economy, not more numerous government programs, reduces poverty. Hernando de Soto identifies the true pillars of wealth which center on property rights that are fully transferable and secured by a legal system that is free of corruption and over-regulation. The World Bank estimates nearly five billion people are legally and economically disenfranchised by their own governments.
Government corruption and/or government over regulation create poverty. There is a high correlation between poverty and nations having corrupt governments or governments that over regulate the marketplace and citizen initiative. Where economic improvement has occurred, it was always proceeded by a lessening of corruption in their respective governments and increased political and economic freedom and stability within their borders.
Population growth is either not related to, or has a slight positive correlation with, economic growth. Greater population growth rates often translate into the economic growth.
Per capita income is positively correlated with environmental protection. The better the economy, the greater the ability of a society to afford environmental protection and sustainability.
Money alone does not reduce poverty. While there is still extreme poverty in the world, enormous progress has been made in its reduction. Although trillions of dollars have been spent in the United States on poverty reduction, dollars have not measurably lowered the poverty level. Large government programs have in fact harmed millions of Americans by making their survival dependent upon the largess of federal government.
The greatest poverty will be in rural areas. While rural prosperity seems to play only an insignificant role in the overall GDP of a nation, without rural prosperity urban prosperity cannot be maintained in perpetuity. It is not sustainable. Nor is the poverty in the developing nations caused by the wealthy developed nations.
Planned societies and centralized government discourages initiative, free markets and creativity. Government planning stifles economic growth. Overly bureaucratized societies dampen creativity and causes factions and instability. It therefore does not help people; it discourages them.
Economic growth is not destroying the earth as proclaimed in the headlines, rather the contrary.48 We will look more specifically at environmental concerns below.
Policy Recommendations
1. Nations should maintain open markets with proper legal structures to protect nations and their people from unscrupulous opportunists at both the national and international level. Nations do not produce. Individuals produce and the proper legal checks and balances must be in place to protect people from corrupt governments and international institutions.
2. The international community should discontinue support of coercive population control programs. Provide for wealth creation so there is increasing wealth, and citizens will voluntarily reduce family size.
3. Environmental law should be promulgated and enforced at the state and local level. National and international administration and enforcement of environmental law reduces effectiveness and too easily becomes corrupt and abusive - especially to rural citizens. This recommendation would allow local governments to have the power to find the best solutions for environmental protection while providing greater accountability to its citizens. At the same time, nation states could provide the incentives for economic prosperity to their rural citizens.
4. Require transparency, accountability and liability for all representatives, governmental or non-governmental. Maintain the consent of the governed by avoiding any type of governance that is not accountable to the people governed.
Notes and Citations
1 The global 2000 Report to the President: Global future: Time to Act, prepared by the Council on Environmental quality and the U.S. Department of State (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, January 1981), p. ix.
2 "World Population 2002." Data Tables. United Nations Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Last posted February 14, 2004.
http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/wpp2002/ POP-R2002-DATA_Web.xls
Also see: "World Population Prospects - The 2002 Revision, Highlights" United Nations Population Division, ESA/P/WP. 180, February 26, 2003.
http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/wpp2002/ WPP2002-HIGHLIGHTSrev1.PDF
3 Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, World Population Prospects: The 2002 Revision and World Urbanization Prospects, March 3, 2004. Go to:
http://esa.un.org/unpp/index.asp?panel=2
4 "World Population Prospects: The 2002 Revision," Press Release, population division department of economic and social affairs united nations.
http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/wpp2002/ 2002RevisionPop-PressRelease.doc
5 Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, World Population Prospects: The 2002 Revision and World Urbanization Prospects, March 3, 2004. Go to:
http://esa.un.org/unpp/index.asp?panel=2
6 Table 3. Total Fertility, By Country, For Selected Periods. In: Annex Tables, World Population Prospects, The 2002 Revision, United Nations Population Division. March 3, 2004.
http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/wpp2002/ wpp2002annextables.PDF
7 Bjorn Lomborg. The Skeptical Environmentalist, (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001). p. 91-160.
8 Ibid, p. xix
9 Ibid, p. 159
10 World Bank, World Development Report, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 34.
11 "World Population Prospects; The 2000 Revision." The Database.
http://esa.un.org/unpp/index.asp?panel=1.
12
http://www.usmayors.org/ uscm/news/press_releases/documents/metroeconomies110399.htm.
13 Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, World Population Prospects: The 2002 Revision and World Urbanization Prospects, March 3, 2004. Go to:
http://esa.un.org/unpp/index.asp?panel=1
14 Bjorn Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist, p. 49.
15 Ibid, p. 72.
16 Human Development Report 1997. United Nations Development Program.
http://www.undp.org/hdro/hdrs/1997/english/97.htm
17 Kofi Annan. "Freedom From Want." We The Peoples, The Role of the United Nations in the 21st Century. Section III, 2000.
http://www.un.org/millennium/sg/report/full.htm
18 Ibid.
19 Hernando de Soto. The Mystery of Capital. Chapter 1.
http://www.ild.org.pe/tmoc/cp1-en.htm
20 Ronald Utt and Wyndell Cox. City Limits: Puting the Brakes on Sprawl: A Contrary View, WebMemo#20, Heritage Foundation. June 29, 2001.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/SmartGrowth/WM20.cfm
21 Hernando de Soto. The Mystery of Capital (New York: Basic Books, 2000), pp. 6-7, 20-21, 35.
22 Joseph E. Stiglitz. Globalization and Its Discontents (New York: WW. Norton & Company, 2003), p. 15.
23 Ibid.
24 Ibid, p. 19.
25
http://www.freetheworld.com
26 Ibid, p. 74.
27 Ibid, p. 73.
28
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan#Expenditures
29 Joseph Stiglitz. Globalization and Its Discontents, p. 164.
30 Ibid, p. 18.
31 Hernando de Soto. The Mystery of Capital, p. 35.
32 Joseph Dalaker, Poverty in the United States: 2000, Number of Poor and Poverty Rate, 1959-2000, September 2001. p 3. U.S. Bureau of Census, Current Population Trends, Series P60-214.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/poverty00/pov00.html and
http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/p60-214.pdf
33 Poverty: 2000 Highlights, U.S. Department of Census.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/p...0/pov00hi.html
34
http://www.freemarketfoundation.com
35 U.S. Census Bureau determines an area is urban if it has over 1,000 people per square mile surrounded by census blocks having at least 500 people per square mile
36 Lomborg, p. 49.
37 "Real Gross Domestic Product by Industry in Chained" (1996) Dollars, 1994-2000. Bureau of Economic Analysis of the Department of Census. 2001.
http://www.bea.doc.gov/bea/dn2/gpox.htm
38 Kimberley Strassel. "Rural Cleansing" The Wall Street Journal, Thursday, July 26, 2001.
39 USA Today. "Latest Vote, County by County."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...lectionmap.htm
40 Jacqueline Kasun. The War Against Population, The Economics and Ideology of World Population Control (San Francisco: Ignatius Press), p. 64.
41 Ibid, p. 45.
42 Jeffrey Frankel. "Why economies grow the way they do." Canadian Business Economics, Spring/Summer 1998.
http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/fs/jfrankel/Apecgrow.pdf
43 Ibid.
44 Hernando de Soto Asks Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West But Fails Everywhere Else. DevNews Media Center, World Bank Group. July 23, 2002.
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTE...0,,contentMDK: 20055477~menuPK:34457~pagePK:34370~piPK:34424~theS itePK:4607,00.html
45 Hernando de Soto. The Mystery of Capital (New York: Basic Books, 2000), p. 35.
46 Amartya Sen. Democracy as Freedom (Anchor, 1999)
47
http://www.wehaitians.com/does%20dem...%20famine.html
48 Lomborg, p. 211.