Agenda 21: The Real Deal?

Andrew D Atkin

There's a lot of talk on Agenda 21, which is the UN planning document formulated to drive forward a sustainable world. Critics of it (such as myself) have interpreted it as the backbone document behind the international move to force-intensify cities, in the name of making them more environmentally sustainable.

Ok. But how does/has Agenda 21 worked? I don't know exactly, and the following is speculative, but I want to write about the document from what I have read of it myself.

Firstly, it's a massive document and horribly tedious to get through (which I didn't - not to completion). But what I noticed was that the document was heavy on environmental goals yet, overall, extremely weak on actual methods for achieving those goals.

The promoted goals were of the type that few people would fail to respect as commendable, in themselves. On this level it was a good sell. However, what I specifically noticed within Agenda 21 was the constant and repetitive promotion of developing managerial human resources to actualise the promoted goals.

Now this is what interests me. Looking at the Agenda 21 document bluntly, it gives me the impression that the document, before anything else, is just one big advert to get the incumbent power structure (of the time) to accept letting the UN, directly and/or indirectly, train-up the next generation of environmentally-focused managers for the public bureaucracies of the future.

So Agenda 21 seems to have effectively marketed itself by carefully avoiding criticism, by keeping away from the 'methods' conversation in the early days, and instead just sticking to a goals-focus of the type that any reasonable person would probably agree with. And then from there, with an obviously a long-term focus, presumably indoctrinating the methods part of the game into the next generation of managers, through the universities. An indoctrination process safely hidden away behind the tertiary sectors closed doors?

That may not be completely right. To a degree I am speculating. But from what I have seen of the whole mad game of modern urban planning, that is the jacket that fits. We've had an explosion of environmentally-focused education in our tertiary institutes, and the dubious and ideological components of it are quite obvious, and there seems to be a striking lack of internal debate within these new indoctrinated classes (example).

I'm not the only one to see it this way. The late Owen McShane (one of New Zealand's most experienced and esteemed experts on urban development), for example, developed such a contempt for what was being taught in our tertiary institutes that he said a good rule of thumb was "to avoid any individual with the word 'environmental' in the title of their qualification" - expressing contempt for both their education and their intelligence. And McShane, like virtually all of us, was no anti-environmentalist.

But why would the UN have something to hide? What is their objective?

Well, the truth is force-intensifying cities is in fact 'sustainability' policy, but not in the way most people would think it is. High-density cities do not deliver a reduced ecological footprint in themselves. In fact they are, or certainly can be, much worse on this level...

Forced high-density cities deliver greater sustainability by suppressing human fertility. This is done in two basic ways. Forced intensification makes housing hugely expensive by inflating land costs, and high-density cities are associated with a high stress atmosphere that most parents don't like to bring their children up in, as a preference. Forced intensification provides a deterrent to human breeding, especially in the industrialised world where people can comfortably choose to have less children, due to easy access to contraception and the absence of long-range financial incentives.

Population control and Eugenics. Is it real?

Population control sounds evil, like eugenics, but the fact is that any significantly sized government controls its population and is likewise an entity of directed bio-demographics (that's the best term I can think of).

Think about this. The only way our government/s can claim to be non-eugenics is to be wilfully blind to the [direct or indirect] bio-demographic impact of their policy. (And that impact is both a calculable and a serious long-term issue)*.

Now the moment our government admits this, at least to themselves, they are functional eugenicists. So have the social planners and policy makers within the UN run the models and made the calculations? Do they integrate this kind of thinking into their policy formation? I would bet my left arm that they have. Why wouldn't they? It would actually be irresponsible for them not to. And if they integrate this thinking into their policy-formation they will become secretive, because although bio-demographics is a critical dynamic of social evolution you obviously cannot afford to be associated with it (openly) due to modern public sentiment with these issues.

Conclusion:

Within the highest levels of public policy development is probably just a bunch of people who model how they think the world should develop, and then from there formulate their methods to achieve their idealised goals. Agenda 21, with its seemingly (or superficially) irrational focus of forcing higher urban densities, may only be one of many methodologies to effectively manage and guide the human animal to an idealised end-point - and the truth be damned? 

I've casually said before that there are only two great problems in the world: Population control and eugenics. Because they are ultimately necessary as a policy focus (unless you believe humans are above natural law. Serious thinkers don't) yet extremely difficult to deploy and be open about. All other problems, by comparison, are academic.

This is why I'm open to the possibility of a kind of conspiracy behind the Agenda 21 movement. Again I might not be completely right, but it really is, overall, a jacket that fits. Agenda 21 looks like another population-control policy.

Addition: 12-1-14: 

The mind of the true elite:

Imagine this scenario. You and your colleagues (all on the same level as you) have a responsibility, as much as anyone else, to form public policy on national and global levels, and are therefore responsible as much as any other human being to think on a long-term basis about the environmental and social evolution of our planet. An extreme but real responsibility.

Now how would this affect your thinking? Really, you would be under huge pressure to confront your comfortable opinions and, basically, become deathly realistic - at least insofar as you can be. You would do this because you know that you simply have to.

Now, from this position how would you think about things like eugenics and population control? Well for a start you would think about them, because they are real concerns and it's up to you to confront them and respond to them, because if you don't then no-one will. And not responding to serious concerns is potentially incredibly dangerous, because you would then be playing Russian roulette with an entire planet.

Can you see my point? If you put yourself in the role of whoever it is at the top of public policy formation, and you can relate to their mentality or what at least should be their mentality.

The common man's emotional programming is to never think in terms of eugenics because it's been so deeply associated with Nazis's and mad scientists. The man on the street goes through some kind of identity crises if he even goes there, in thought. But a true elite would never do this. They would sigh, take a breath, and then say: "Ok, Let's look at the human breeds, and types, quantify the differences insofar as we can understand them, and then relate this understanding to our policy; because as long as we're developing international public policy we must be realistic on all fronts, so that we can model, to the best of our ability, the long-term developmental impacts".

Again, this is why I don't think any of us should assume that eugenics is not a very real part of policy formation at the highest levels of social management. Indeed it should be expected.