*The collapse of the Soviet Union and the current problems in the People's Republic of China, as well as environmental problems in many Third World countries, underscore his assessment. Societies that do not have sustainable technologies will squander resources and then look elsewhere, with hostile intent, to acquire them. A CIA report published a year before September 11, Global Trends 2015 (which also anticipated larger and more deadly terrorist strikes, anticipated an increasing possibility of conflict over water resources.
I guess I agree with this too, but there's a big problem with the term "sustainable": Who gets to define what is "sustainable" and what isn't? Al Gore? Most of the people who use the term "sustainable" aren't using it the way you are, instead they're leftists who just hate SUVs, suburbs, strip malls, people who own land and want to do stuff on it, etc. So they define all of these as anathema to "sustainability" and there you go.
It's one thing to observe that societies which squander resources and pollute like USSR did tend to collapse and/or become belligerent. It's quite a leap to go from there to suggesting that central leaders can consciously plan how to be "sustainable" in all situations. Seems to me a big problem with the USSR's "unsustainability" was that they had too much central control, not too little.
One way to improve "sustainability" of, say, land usage would be to reinforce private property rights (landowners have little incentive to use their land in an "unsustainable" fashion unless government regulations exist to make that an appealing option...). Having Colin Powell sound off about the Need For Sustainable Policy doesn't exactly help achieve this state of affairs; it may event do harm rather than good if it convinces yet more people that the solution to all things is to hand control over to government.... IMHO
How many "last straws" does this guy get?
The UN considers the United States to be a region.
Consumerism is definately a problem. I doubt seriously that any government will solve the problems listed in this article.
When individuals are given rights in air, land, and water, tort liability protects and balances those rights. When air, land, and water are considered "public" resources (i.e., owned by noone and everyone), waste and spoilage is the inevitable result.In a society which honors and protects rights in property, mutually antagonistic and/or cooperative exercise of those rights strikes a balance of (guess what?) "sustainable development."
Doubtless, people occupy space, consume resources, and generate pollution. Thus, one threat to "sustainable development" in the United States is the government's importation of large numbers of people (literally millions) and its coercion of non-discrimination and association towards immigrants by native property owners.
The U. S. Department of Energy has joined in promoting the concept of "sustainable development", as revealed by their website. One of the "solutions" offered is "relocation" of property owners. This is something we are seeing on a local level here in Clallam County, Washington.[1]
“Sustainable Development” was first introduced by Maurice Strong, socialist, senior adviser to the Commission on Global Governance and driving force behind the concept of “sustainability”. When introducing the term at the 1992 Rio Conference (Earth Summit II), he stated: Industrialized countries [Americans] have “developed and benefited from the unsustainable patterns of production and consumption which have produced our present dilemma. It is clear that current lifestyles and consumption pattern of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, consumption of large amounts of frozen and convenience foods, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work-place air-conditioning and suburban housing – are not sustainable. A shift is necessary toward lifestyles less geared to environmentally damaging consumption patterns.”[2] Strong also explains in an essay that the concept of sovereignty has to yield in favor of the “new imperatives of global environmental cooperative.”
Following are some alarming excerpts from the U.S. Department of Energy's website:
http://www.sustainable.doe.gov/disaster/disintro.shtml ...Development continues unabated in the riskiest of areas, along the coasts and floodplains in the U.S. Communities in these high-risk regions, by definition, are not sustainable. Residents cannot count on the communities' survival for generations to come. Some live in fear that the next rain or wind storm could mean the end of normal life. These are people and communities at risk, locked in a costly, life-threatening gamble with the environment.... ...Sustainable development offers a way out. For some communities, the only solution is relocation, moving entirely off the floodplain, out of harm's way. For others, sustainable development means restricting new construction in particularly vulnerable areas, elevating structures to remove the threat of flooding, or building smarter, stronger buildings that are more hazard-resistant... ...While at first glance this facet of sustainable development may seem unrelated to disaster prevention, in truth they're intricately tied. An increasing body of evidence points to human energy use - specifically the burning of fossil fuels - as a factor in global climate change. Global climate change, in turn, may be at least partially responsible for the increased number and severity of storms. By making efficient use of energy resources, disaster-prone communities that employ sustainable development are also doing their part to slow global warming and temper the very storms that threaten them.... ...Striving for sustainability is a daunting task, even for those communities that aren't disaster-prone. Changing the way we use resources and approach development is slow-going and often frustrating...
The Dept. of Energy bases much of its rhetoric on the false premise that humans are the cause of "global warming" - when in fact, global warming is a theory, not scientifically proven. See Global Warming Models Labeled 'Fairy Tale' By Team of Scientists.[3]
The insurance industry has been pulled into the game of “Sustainable Development”, too. The website states: “Increasingly, the insurance industry is taking an interest in global climate change as a possible contributor to the dramatic rise in costly natural disasters. Industry leaders share with advocates of sustainable development a desire to mitigate weather-related damages and make communities stronger. Insurance and The Natural Sciences: Partners in the Public Interest, a speech presented in September 1996 by Franklin W. Nutter, president of the Reinsurance Association of America, further explains this ‘insurance connection.’”
As a “public/private” partnership, the move toward fascism continues.[4]
The Dept. of Energy website refers the reader to the United Nations for more information. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, through Global Change, a magazine about climate change and ozone depletion published by the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security.
Action you can take:
Write to President Bush and request that he reverse the "Sustainable Development" trend in the agencies he controls. Find contact information here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
[1] See ‘Contentious’ river property owners unwilling to sell, but some feel they have no choice and Citizens speak out against river buyout; county to proceed with grant application anyway
[2] Agenda 21 stresses “ Improving human settlement management; Promoting sustainable land-use planning and management; Promoting sustainable energy and transport systems in human settlements, to name a few – in other words, “managing humans” is the goal at a global level.
[3] See also Another Study Debunks Global Warming. Two new studies of temperatures and ice cap movement in that same area indicate that is not the case. In fact, Antarctica is becoming colder. Dr. Peter Dorman and his team of scientists have determined that since 1986, temperatures have been dropping an average of 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit per decade and similar downturns have occurred since 1978 in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of east Antarctica. When the scientists noticed that “glacial ice wasn’t melting, streams weren’t flowing, lakes were shrinking and microorganisms were disappearing, they decided to expand their data collection and discovered that “Antarctica as a whole had gotten considerably colder." The study seems to confirm what 17,000 scientists have previously determined; there is no “global warming.”