Proponents of the Sustainable Development policy are alarmed and working feverishly to counter our claims that such controls over local development and energy policy have their roots in international policy. In particular, our claims that these planning policies come from the UN’s Agenda 21, that was introduced to the world at the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992.
Their most often used description of Agenda 21 is an “innocuous, 20 year old document that has no enforcement power.” Continuously we hear that local planning programs, especially from such groups like the American Planning Association (APA) have no connection to Agenda 21 or the UN. It’s all local – or as the APA says in its document, Glossary for the Public, “There is no hidden agenda.” In its “Agenda 21: Myths and Facts” document found on the APA website, the group goes to extreme measures to distance itself and its policies from Agenda 21, specifically saying “The American Planning Association has no affiliation regarding any policy goals and recommendations of the UN.”
Well, then it would be interesting to hear the APA explain this information found in one of its own documents from 1994. The document was an APA newsletter to its members in the Northern California (San Francisco Area). The article was a commentary entitled “How Sustainable is Out Planning, by Robert Odland. It was written just two years after the UN Earth Summit at which Agenda 21 was first introduced to the world.
Read more at American Policy Center.
Don’t think Agenda 21 is in Venango County? Think again! Check out the Venango County Regional Planning Commission here.