Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT)
Press Release
6/18/2012
[Belo Horizonte, Brazil]– To advance public action on global warming, participants attending the ICLEI World Congress admitted today that they are deliberately employing new terminology to misdirect opponents and gain acceptance of their efforts to reduce energy use and greenhouse gases. By utilizing terms like “sustainability” and “sustainable development,” the group wants to mask its objectives and disarm would-be critics who might otherwise oppose their agenda, ICLEI attendees confided with CFACT representatives at the conference.
Huxley Lawler, Executive Coordinator of Environment and Climate Change of the Gold Coast City Council in Australia (an ICLEI member), told CFACT Executive Director Craig Rucker bluntly that “we don’t use the term climate change anymore. It’s sustainable development.” [emphasis CAJ] Rucker and CFACT staffer Abdul Kamara confirmed this in conversations with other delegates, including Paul Chambers, a Sustainability Manager for the Auckland Council in New Zealand. Chambers said it is important to use inexact environment protection terminology when dealing with conservative governments, like the one he says currently heads his nation.
This revelation by ICLEI World Congress attendees comes at a time when public support for global warming is weakening. It reflects a profound change in strategy by proponents of climate action and world governance, and an admission that skeptics of manmade global warming continue to gain ground in shaping public opinion.
ICLEI stands for the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives. It was founded in 1990 to advance “sustainable development,” as enshrined in a document called “Agenda 21,” by persuading local governments around the globe to support restrictions on energy use and economic development. ICLEI claims to represent over 1,200 cities internationally. According to one of its founders, Hans Monninghoff of Germany, cities become part of the organization by paying annual membership fees, which vary according to their population. It formally changed its name in 2003 to “ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability” to promote an even broader energy, economic and political agenda.
Another speaker at the ICLEI World Congress admitted today that creating carbon neutral cities, an important ICLEI goal, will likely kill jobs and displace businesses that are unable to adapt to restrictive policies that raise energy prices or reduce energy reliability. Addressing a question about the impact of carbon neutral policies on the economy during a session on “Accounting and Reporting of Low Carbon Cities,” Hans Karsten said, “There is no guarantee that companies doing business today will be doing business in 20 years.” The head of Technical and Environmental Administration for Copenhagen, Denmark, Karsten later revealed that it was his city’s intent to have zero carbon emissions by 2025, with half the residents riding to work by bicycle.
“Thinking they can speak candidly on their home turf, ICLEI speakers reveal an unworkable economic agenda,” said CFACT President David Rothbard. “ICLEI’s bait and switch – substituting ‘sustainable development’ for ‘climate change’ – is shameless and deceptive. People need to understand ICLEI’s real agenda, before it cons other local governments into joining. ICLEI is weaving a crafty spider’s web that will entangle communities before they realize how its restrictive rules will kill jobs and reduce freedoms and living standards.”
Related: U.N.’s threat to biodiversity ‘Green’ agenda is not healthy for children and other living things
Thousands of politicians, bureaucrats and environmental activists have gathered in Rio de Janeiro for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, which runs through Friday. This time, 20 years after the original 1992 Rio Earth Summit, delegates are minimizing references to “dangerous man-made climate change” to avoid repeating the acrimony and failures that came from the United Nations‘ recent climate conferences in Copenhagen; Cancun, Mexico; and Durban, South Africa.
Instead, Rio+20 seeks to shift international focus to “biodiversity” and supposed threats to plant and animal species as the new “greatest threat” facing planet Earth. This rebranding is “by design,” according to conference organizers, who have been uncharacteristically candid in describing sustainable development and biodiversity as an “easier sell” than climate change. It’s a simpler path to advance the same radical goals….
…Opposition to conventional electricity generation forces people to rely on open fires for cooking and heating – perpetuating lung diseases and premature death from breathing smoke and pollutants. It also destroys the habitats for gorillas and other wildlife as people cut trees and brush for fires and charcoal.
Wind turbines slice up birds and collapse bat lungs. Turbine and solar arrays cover millions of acres of farmland and wildlife habitat to provide expensive, intermittent power for urban areas. They require backup generators and long transmission lines, and they consume millions of tons of concrete, steel, copper, fiberglass, polymers and rare earth minerals – extracted from the earth, mostly in countries that lack modern pollution-control regulations and technologies.
Corn-based ethanol requires tens of millions of acres, billions of gallons of water, millions of tons of fertilizer and insecticides, and enormous quantities of hydrocarbon fuels.
Yet President Obama has said poor, electricity-deprived, malnourished Africans should rely on biofuel, wind and solar power – and not build gas-fired power plants…
Read the whole thing.
Climate Shocker: In 2007, Lovelock Predicted Global Warming Doom: ‘Billions of us will die; few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in Arctic’
‘The green religion is now taking over from the Christian religion’ — James Lovelock: ”IPCC is too politicized & too internalized’ — On Green religion: ‘I don’t think people have noticed that, but it’s got all the sort of terms that religions use. The greens use guilt. You can’t win people round by saying they are guilty for putting CO2 in the air’ [emphasis CAJ]
‘This is what makes me very cross with the greens for trying to knock it: the amount of CO2 produced by burning gas in a good turbine gives you 60% efficiency. In a coal-fired power station, it is 30% per unit of fuel. So you get a two-to-one gain there straight away’
Follow this link to read an excellent roundup of quotes by, and articles about, ‘Gaia scientist’ James Lovelock.
From December 2010: More Than 1000 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims – Challenge UN IPCC & Gore
Visit Climate Depot for new articles daily.
Update: Rio+20: ‘I Want to Light a Fire, and Remind You of the Urgency of Our Task’
Desperate scare tactics like these mean you’re gonna pay and pay…
Update 2: New report: You can all calm down about fracking and earthquakes
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