Posted on 08/20/2002 4:00:50 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
On the eve of the biggest enviro-mania fest in a decade comes the signal to brace ourselves. We're in for a slew of depressing "news" about our planet.
Actor Leonardo DiCaprio launched the PR campaign for the upcoming Earth Summit by essentially equating our home turf with the Titanic. The neophyte activist called the U.S. "the world's biggest polluter."
Ostensibly, he was trying to convince President Bush to join international counterparts – Tony Blair, Vicente Fox and Jacques Chirac – and attend the U.N. Summit in South Africa later this month.
So far Bush hasn't committed, and he'd be wise to be a no-show.
DiCaprio spoke recently at a rally organized by Global Green USA, an affiliate of Green Cross International. As might be expected, he mouthed the standard grievance that the Bush administration pulled us out of the Kyoto Protocol.
Conspicuously absent from mainstream press coverage was what exactly Green Cross International is and who runs the organization.
Green Cross International was founded in 1993 by former Soviet leader and lifelong communist Mikhail Gorbachev. It is a non-governmental, non-profit organization whose mission is to "help create a sustainable future by cultivating harmonious relationships between humans and the environment."
According to its Web site, Green Cross International seeks "a fundamental transformation of society's values with respect to the environment."
Apparently, the group's got a real friend in the U.N. In fact, the U.N. likes Gorbachev greenies so much, it awarded the group its highest accreditation level: NGO in general consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.
In addition, the U.N. provides assistance and resources to the Green Cross, and other like-minded organizations, so they can do lopsided studies and convince us of the need for "fundamental transformation."
Although it's customary for a report to be issued prior to a summit, in this instance the purpose of this preliminary report seems to be to scare us into submitting to the U.N.'s latest sovereignty-snuffing plans.
The "doomsday diary" tells us how forests are in ruin, droughts are pandemic, animals are becoming extinct, the air is polluted and the water is toxic. It warns of the widespread poverty, environmental devastation, and food and water shortages that are sure to get worse if we don't change our ways.
And what changes do we need to make? Believe it or not, the U.N. thinks we need to become more Third Worldly in our lifestyle. The planet's in peril and the only thing that the U.N. believes will save it is a massive realignment of the Western world, so that everyone shares the same substandard quality of life.
The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro produced all sorts of multilateral treaties and consensus papers that showed little regard for property rights, free enterprise or a nation's self-determination.
President Bush has already been roundly attacked at home and abroad for pulling out of the Kyoto quagmire and unsigning the International Criminal Court Treaty. He would do well to follow his previous performances by hitting another high note in Johannesburg and leaving the seat reserved for the U.S.A. empty
Hear that DiCaprio? Time to get rid of your plushy pad and move into a mud hut!
But not to worry, I'm doing it "for the children (TM)"
The eco-wackos won't be happy until everyone is living in mud huts with their bicycles and cooking veggies over a buffalo dung fire. The anointed saviors of Earth, however, will live in mansions and ride around in limousines.
Like the Goron democRATS do now, eh?
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