Feb 06 2012
Agenda 21
As the pressure of sloppy, hurriedly outlined low-density urbanization continues, efforts by governments to encourage the use of public transit are attacked as an effort to force people into cities and force “city life” on their way of life. Related efforts to preserve open space as a way to maintain clean water and air are seen as efforts to deny property rights. Even the broad environmental concerns outlined in United Nations Agenda 21 that encourage limited use of resources, land conservation and development priorities aimed at dense areas are defined as conspiratorial. How is this possible?
Two writers recently came across an interesting use of journalistic radar on these concerns – watch the Tea Party and then compare their opposition to the threat of big-government to specific proposals. One example is opposition to nonprofits promoting sustainability citing ICLEI in California.[1] The death of Florida’s high-speed rail is more complicated, but includes Tea Party opposition. The article points the source of these and other examples to the Republican Party’s resolution pointing out “the destructive and insidious nature” of Agenda 21 as an even larger government force capable of promoting controls that intrude on the American way of life. The articles main point is this:
“The Republican National Committee resolution, passed without fanfare on Jan. 13, 2012 declared, ‘The United Nations Agenda 21 plan of radical so-called ‘sustainable development’ views the American way of life of private property ownership, single family homes, private car ownership and individual travel choices, and privately owned farms; all as destructive to the environment.’ ” [2]
The consequence of framing urban development this way coalesce the issues toward a “fear vs. fact” condition. Fear presses conspiracy buttons that paradoxically turn against attempts to save public money as a factual measure. The Machiavellian phenomenon here is well known. It obscures the real problem perfectly. The fear of not having the right information to make an informed decision puts everyone responsible for making them a threat. It’s called bonded rationality and everybody has it, but in degrees.
How would it be possible to establish an unimpeachable factual hierarchy?
One
To examine this question begin with the following presentation by John Anthony found on U-Tube. The slide presentation carefully outlines the details of Agenda 21 as a threat to the American way of life, it compares its content to the U.S. Constitution as if it was a conspiracy designed to allow international interests to take precedence over local interests. It opens with a picture of a single family home perched on a grassy half acre. A soft articulate voice suggests space like it is as essential to freedom, as it is capable of growing food. Mr. Anthony is a resident of New Jersey, but among thousands of people active in the delivery presentations fearful of a global policy. A quick search using “John Anthony”, “Tea Party”, and “Agenda 21″ produced nearly 7,000 listings.
Two
Rather than attempt to clarify presentations like this “as speech”, or move through it point-by-point for contextual errors or insightful juxtapositions of fact, the more interesting aspect is to ask why the rise of a global agenda is defined as a threat to the American way of life. The number of people swept up (or away) by the rhetoric that indirectly promotes a winner take all, “us against the world”, spoils to the victor agenda is enormously popular, but little more than a restatement of an American manifest destiny.
How is the level of emotion produced by this view altered by the facts?
Three?
Answer – the facts have nothing to do with it, thus the facts are not relevant to the argument. What can be sustained as renewable without damage is not as yet an argument for “a taking” of property or anything else in the name of a public benefit. It is human to resist this kind of change as much of it trends toward conditions that cannot be controlled. Households cannot control these cycles, no more than they could a tornado. The real challenge is learning to negotiate with one.
Much of the design that presses for change aims at improving the quality of human life. It is grounded in science that yields to varying levels of empirical evidence. The widest latitude is given to professions that solve the health and/or legal problems of the individual – post trauma. Less room for action is given to professionals that work to create environmental conditions designed prevent trauma. The solution is simple, design must stop waiting for pandemics to become effective.
The auto safety, alcohol consumption duality led to designs that produced behavioral changes only after one in three households became infected. The biodiversity, land consumption duality has only begun to establish an argument for design and behavioral changes capable of dealing with the complexity of doing no harm to an entire community.
