Untitled Agenda 21 Sequel (9781476746852) (33 page)

Two women and a man burst into sight. Two of them were in Earth Protectors' uniforms. My heart sank. We wouldn't have a chance against them.

David stared at the one woman in a dirt-smeared white uniform. I stared, too.

Joan!

Steven dropped his ammunition on the ground and pulled an ax out of his pack. With his left hand, he held it above his head.

Standing some distance from Steven, the woman in a torn Protectors' uniform reached into one of the packs they were carrying and pulled out a spray bottle. “You said I could spray animals,
sir
, and so I am,
sir.
” I could smell the liquid in the air, and saw the drops on his face.

Steven screamed, dropped the ax, and covered his face with his hands.

Joan looked at Steven with disdain. “You said John was gone, just like that—poof.” She snapped her fingers. “Now it's your turn.” She nodded at the man next to her. “Winston, do what needs to be done.” The man pointed a gun at Steven.

“Wait!” David shouted. “Don't shoot him! Killing him is too good, too easy, too fast. He needs to suffer first.” The very words we heard
guards say the first day as we hid under a pine tree. The very words that terrified us. And now, full circle, I felt poetic justice.

“Winston, help me put him in one of these cages,” David said. Winston put away his gun, and together, he and David forcefully dragged Steven, still covering his face with his hands, to a cage. They shoved him in, and he fell forward on his hands and knees. They slammed the gate and the rusty lock was firmly and securely closed.

David ran to Joan and swept her into his arms. Tears streamed down her face. Winston and the woman in a Protectors' uniform came and sat beside me.

“I'm Julia,” she said. “And this is Winston.”

“But your uniforms,” I asked. “Are you Earth Protectors?”

“No,” Winston said. “Don't let the uniforms frighten you. We're here to protect you and your family. That is now our true mission.”

David brought Elsa and Micah from the latrine, and they clung to me while staring at the strangers.

They wouldn't be strangers for long. I knew immediately that they would be part of our family—and part of our journey to a new life. To a safe place.

Out of the shadows, and into the light.

You save what you think you are going to lose. You never give up.

I would never give up
.

“The developmental and environmental objectives of Agenda 21 will require a substantial flow of new and additional financial resources to developing countries in order to cover the incremental costs for the actions they have to undertake to deal with global environmental problems and to accelerate sustainable development.”

—Preamble to Agenda 21

UN Conference on Environment & Development Conference, 1992

A
few years ago I read a manuscript that a woman named Harriet Parke had submitted to my publishing imprint, Mercury Ink. She had titled it
Agenda 21
, and it told the story of a dystopian future in which citizens' bleak existence inside Compounds was highlighted by their primary responsibility to produce energy for “the Republic.” The story resonated with me because it brought a real-life issue, an obscure UN program called “Agenda 21,” to life in a compelling and entertaining way.

In deciding to partner with Harriet on the book, and then eventually publish it with Simon & Schuster, I hoped that people would read the novel, do their own homework, and then pass it along. Fortunately,
hundreds of thousands of people did just that. Now, two years after the first novel was released, much has changed. A grassroots campaign, which was already under way well before the novel was published, became even more energized. This campaign was influential in educating both politicians and voters on the issue and, in many cases, outright stopping the progress of Agenda 21–related laws and regulations at the local level.

Slowly but surely, minds began to change about these seemingly innocuous “sustainability” schemes. People who had no idea that a UN program could impact their own city laws and regulations realized that everything from “land use” plans to “smart growth” programs to energy efficiency efforts like smart-meter requirements all fit under this massive Agenda 21 umbrella.

Because of these grassroots efforts, many cities and states have formally expressed their opposition to Agenda 21, either by passing laws banning the implementation of its related initiatives, or by dropping out of the International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), which is the primary group that facilitates the local implementation of Agenda 21.

There is still plenty more to be done, but even educating people on the basics has proven to be successful. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which is about as politically far-left a group as you'll find, has admitted that anti–Agenda 21 activists are making serious inroads into blocking projects. In their report “Agenda of Fear,” they wrote, “Supporters of smart-growth and anti-sprawl initiatives should study the Battle of Baldwin County. It was a rout—for the other side.” That's great news for those of us who are on that “other side”: our efforts are working!

If you are reading this sequel before you have read the first book, you're likely curious about the real Agenda 21 and how much of the story you just read is based on fact. The following offers a brief outline, but a more thorough overview, complete with a resource guide, is included
in the afterword to the original novel, which I highly encourage you to read. (Some of the below is excerpted from that afterword.)

As I did in the previous novel, let me first reiterate a few things for the benefit of people who believe that publishing a novel somehow means that I believe that everything in it must be true. This is obviously a work of fiction. The point of a story like this is not to scare people or to somehow get my “real” beliefs out there by calling it fiction, but to get people to start thinking critically about the real issues we are dealing with—both at a national level, and, perhaps more important, at a local one. I think this series of novels does a great job with that because it forces readers to imagine a world where all the nice-sounding things that we think we want come to fruition. It's great to say, for example, that mankind is responsible for a warming climate, or that we are using too much water—but what happens when we try to use government to “fix” those things?
Agenda 21
takes that line of thought to its extreme end, and, in doing so, forces all of us to think about what grand pronouncements regarding the reduction of mankind's environmental footprint really mean.

Agenda 21 is a United Nations program designed to foster “sustainable development,” which is the idea that we must decrease humanity's imprint on the environment. Agenda 21's history is tied to the UN and Canadian billionaire Maurice Strong through various Earth-related conferences, originating at the 1972 Stockholm Earth Summit.

In the first book we boiled all of Agenda's 21 various documents and proclamations down to a list of nine basic goals:

1. Move citizens off private land and into high-density urban housing.

2. Create vast wilderness spaces inhabited by large carnivores.

3. Reduce traffic congestion and slash fuel use by eliminating cars and creating “walkable” cities.

4. Support chosen private businesses with public funds to be used for “sustainable development.”

5. Make policy decisions that favor the greater good over individuals.

6. Drastically reduce the use of power, water, and anything that creates “carbon pollution.”

7. Use bureaucracies to make sweeping decisions outside of democratic processes.

8. Increase taxes, fees, and regulations.

9. Implement policies meant to incentivize a reduced population (i.e., “one-child” type laws).

The 1972 UN Earth Summit resulted in something called the “Stockholm Declaration,” which was essentially an action plan consisting of twenty-six principles and seven proclamations, the last of which read:

[
Achieving our environmental goals
]
will demand the acceptance of responsibility by citizens and communities and by enterprises and institutions at every level, all sharing equitably in common efforts.

More than forty years later, this has morphed into the UN's official definition of Agenda 21, which is included right on the cover of their program:

Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human impacts on the environment.

Both definitions agree that Agenda 21 will need cooperation at every level of government. The UN also makes it clear that that we must address every area where humans have an impact on the environment. The problem, of course, is that that encompasses almost everything we do in life. Try to think of something you do on a daily basis that does not “impact” the environment in some way. It's almost impossible. The simple act of turning on a light switch, taking a shower, or driving to get a coffee has an impact, let alone flying in an airplane or using your air conditioner.

These definitions of Agenda 21 are ridiculously (and intentionally) vague because the overall point of all of this is for us to eventually cede control over nearly every facet of our lives for the sake of the environment.

Implementation of Agenda 21 happens via such global “independent” agencies like ICLEI, the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives. The U.S. version of this (ICLEI USA) uses various means to implement their programs. According to their website (see: icleiusa.org) more than six hundred American land-use bodies have joined and are given training, tools, and programs. Here is how they describe themselves:

ICLEI USA was launched in 1995 and has grown from a handful of local governments participating in a pilot project to a solid network of more than 600 cities, towns and counties actively striving to achieve tangible reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and create more sustainable communities. ICLEI USA is the domestic leader on climate protection and adaptation, and sustainable development at the local government level.

Facing criticism, ICLEI has deleted its publicly available list of member cities. (You can find a cached version of the list from July 2013 here:
http://bit.ly/1w5klWr
.)

In December 2012, Indiana State Representative Tim Neese introduced a bill to block implementation of UN “Agenda 21” policies. The Bill (HB 1021) stated:

An Indiana governmental entity may not adopt or implement: (1) certain policy recommendations relating to the United Nations' 1992 ‘Agenda 21' conference on the environment and development that deliberately or inadvertently infringe on or restricts private property rights without due process
 . . . (See:
http://bit.ly/1w5l4qO
)

Alabama has also been a leader in this area. On May 6, 2012, the legislature passed Senate Bill 477, titled “Due Process for Property Rights Act.” The law was approved unanimously by the House and Senate and later signed by the governor (See:
http://bit.ly/1w5lgGr
).

In Missouri, State Rep Lyle Rowland submitted a bill to block Agenda 21 in December 2012, remarking, “What I've heard is, they think it's a hidden agenda that being adhered to by some areas. . . . What we're saying is, in this particular bill, that we don't want any of [Agenda 21] coming in to the state of Missouri.”

In January 2013, Washington State legislators introduced House Bill 1165, which reads:

Since the UN has accredited and enlisted numerous nongovernmental and intergovernmental organizations to assist in the implementation of its policies relative to Agenda 21 around the world, the state of Washington and all political subdivisions may not enter into any agreement, expend any sum of money, or receive funds contracting services or giving financial aid to or from
the nongovernmental and intergovernmental organizations defined in Agenda 21.
(See:
http://1.usa.gov/1w5lnBM
)

Similar bills have been submitted in Virginia, Maine, Oklahoma, and Kentucky, where Sen. John Schikel, the bill's sponsor, said, “The people of Kentucky don't want international groups dictating to us what environmental policy should be.”

Cities and counties are also attempting to stop Agenda 21 by reasoning that parts of it violate local laws. One example is from Oklahoma, where, citing property rights and due process, the Mustang City Council voted down building codes originating in UN Agenda 21 standards (See:
http://bit.ly/1w5lBJg
). The residents seemed unusually well-informed on the subject, undoubtedly the result of activists working to educate people prior to the hearing. The Fairbanks, Alaska, and Menifee, California, city councils also approved anti–Agenda 21 resolutions in 2013 (See:
http://bit.ly/1w5lH3q
).

In Cobb County, Georgia, a local board decided it would not accept Agenda 21–related strings that were attached to federal grants. Among other things, these grants demanded that the county operate bilingual services for non–English speakers, create community gardens, and ensure pedestrian and bicycle access in and around bus stops. Resident Bill Hudson remarked, “There's nothing that's on the excellence list that is not Agenda 21 in spades. . . . The counties, the cities, the state government, the school boards, they're all just hooked on grant money like crack cocaine.”

In February 2014, the St. Lucie, Florida, Board of County Commissioners rejected the Seven50 plan (See:
http://bit.ly/1w5lOMD
), an Agenda 21 clone that would've served as a kind of master plan for seven different Florida counties. According to an article about the plan's defeat, the mayor had attended a briefing by Seven50 supporters in which they claimed that only “mega regions” were important, that the Florida counties that would fall under the partnership would
“have someone to control them,” and that “Fascism is the best form of government to implement these changes.” (See:
http://bit.ly/1w5mbXz
)