The Piedmont Group of the Sierra Club (PGSC) is furious over Albemarle County’s recent decoupling from ICLEI (Local Governments for Sustainability)—a self-proclaimed “worldwide movement of local governments.” Now, the Club is urging members and affiliates to “give Albemarle’s Supervisors a piece of your mind!!” in hopes of convincing the Board to recommence intercourse with the internationalist organization.

In a June 30, 2011 email to supporters (copied in full below), the Sierra Club touted the “obvious benefits” of ICLEI membership:

  • Reduced energy consumption
  • Budgetary savings
  • Decreased greenhouse gas emissions

While making the case for resumption of intimacy with ICLEI, PGSC attempted to portray pro-liberty citizen-activists as paranoid over possible loss of sovereignty—mocking the concept of United Nations / ICLEI interconnectivity.

Hyperbole aside, ICLEI (in their own words) is an adjunct to the UN’s globalist agenda, as stated clearly on their web site:

International Goals

Our programs, and projects promote participatory, long-term, strategic planning process that address local sustainability while protecting global common goods. This approach links local action to internationally agreed-upon goals and targets [sic]

And which United Nations goals does ICLEI wish to implement? Again, from their web site:

But acknowledgment of the ICLEI/UN liaison is confirmed also by the UN itself. In a June 28, 2011 address to the National Press Club, Sha Zukang, Under-Secretary-General For Economic And Social Affairs Secretary-General Of The 2012 UN Conference On Sustainable Development, cemented the relationship in his opening remarks:

It is a great pleasure to be here. I am delighted to speak to you today about the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development – or Rio+20 – as it is known.

At the outset, let me thank my hosts:

  • ICLEI [International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives], or Local Governments for Sustainability. You are a long-time partner of the United Nations, going back to Rio 1992 [Emphasis added.]

The local Sierra Club is not alone in denial of the tryst; Albemarle County Supervisor, Dennis Rooker, has jumped into the same bed. At a June 8 Board of Supervisors meeting—against an onslaught of public criticism—Rooker disavowed the Albemarle/ICLEI/UN ménage a trois:

“[ICLEI] is not a part of the United Nations. It’s not supported by the U.N. and it’s not governed by the U.N.,”

Those who value national sovereignty rightfully are alarmed. The dangerous ICLEI / United Nations “control” agenda has been codified locally in the 1998 Sustainability Accords— now being implemented by the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission through provision of a million-dollar federal grant.

Embracing ICLEI is an individual choice, but denying their conjunction with the United Nations and its malignant intentions is unequivocally deceptive. In multiple, desperate attempts to sunder the two, and by focusing on benign aspects of the seduction, the Piedmont Group of the Sierra Club (and their Board of Supervisors emissary, Dennis Rooker), have displayed inexcusable ignorance of fact. Now publicly informed, will they dare beguile again?

Read the Sierra Club’s June 30 email to supporters:

From: Thomas Olivier <cruz.olivier@GMAIL.COM>
To: VIRGINIA-PIEDMONT-NEWS@LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG
Sent: Thu, June 30, 2011 11:17:36 PM
Subject: GIVE ALBEMARLE’S SUPERVISORS A PIECE OF YOUR MIND!!

June 30, 2011

Piedmont Group of the Sierra Club

GIVE ALBEMARLE’S SUPERVISORS A PIECE OF YOUR MIND!!

At their June 8 meeting Albemarle County supervisors voted 4-2 to withdraw from the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI).  Use of ICLEI software helped the County reduce energy consumption, save money and decrease greenhouse gas emissions.  Most audience members and speakers urged the County to stay in ICLEI and take advantage of its obvious benefits.  A minority of speakers urged the County to withdraw from ICLEI, on the grounds that it amounted to outside control of local government and threatened our freedoms.  Some opponents claimed that ICLEI was part of a United Nations mind control program.

Also at the June 8 meeting, in an unannounced, late-night move, Albemarle’s supervisors suspended their rules and voted 4-2 to change their position on the U.S. 29 Western Bypass to one of support for construction.  Albemarle County has opposed construction of this bypass for years.  The bypass will do little to reduce traffic congestion, presents environmental hazards and will cost hundreds of millions of dollars.  With this reversal of Albemarle’s position, the door now is open for approval of bypass construction at meetings of the Metropolitan Planning Organization (14 and 27 July) and Commonwealth Transportation Board ( 20 July ).

If you are as mad as we are about these votes, you have two opportunities to sound off at Albemarle Supervisor meetings in the first half of July.

–  Wednesday, July 6  9:00 a.m.  Supervisors will take comments from the public on matters not on the agenda early in the meeting.  This is an opportunity to speak about the Bypass and/or ICLEI.

– Wednesday, July 13  6:00 p.m.  Early in the meeting they will take comments from the public on matters not on the agenda.  This is a good time to speak about ICLEI.    They will also have a public hearing on the Western Bypass later in the meeting.  This is the time to speak on this issue.

We urge members and friends to let the Albemarle supervisors know that you have problems with their votes against ICLEI and for the bypass.  A sufficient show of public disgust regarding supervisor support for bypass construction, conceivably could lead the supervisors to reverse course and drop support for the project.

If you can speak only once, please come to the 13 July evening meeting and speak against the bypass at the public hearing.  If you really can’t speak at any meetings, please email the supervisors (bos@albemarle.org ) and let them know your displeasure at their actions the evening of June 8.

For more information, contact Tom Olivier ( tel. 434-831-2408; email cruz.olivier@gmail.com )

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6 COMMENTS

  1. Wow, if ICLEI is such an innocent and innocuous endeavor, why would Albemarle’s decision to drop it stir up such emotion from the Sierra Club one way or the other? Methinks there’s more behind ICLEI than it’s proponents wish to divulge!

  2. While making the case for resumption of intimacy with ICLEI, PGSC attempted to portray pro-liberty citizen-activists as paranoid over possible loss of sovereignty

    Loss of sovereignty is exactly what you’re concerned about. You can take issue with “paranoid,” which is an unsympathetic way to describe your grave concern, but it perfectly mirrors your own snide and uncharitable description of liberal concerns.

    Embracing ICLEI is an individual choice

    Right. In other words, it’s an exercise of liberty. Liberty does not because loss of sovereignty when it accepts the opinion of one group or another, even when that group is large and international like the U.N.

    Jon says:
    if ICLEI is such an innocent and innocuous endeavor, why would Albemarle’s decision to drop it stir up such emotion from the Sierra Club one way or the other? Methinks there’s more behind ICLEI than it’s proponents wish to divulge!

    Because the Sierra Club doesn’t want them to drop it and feels as strongly about the issue as, say, Rob does, of course. Do you have the same suspicion of Rob?

    I don’t mean to be unkind, I really don’t, but the sheer stupidity of the question, the rush to presume that something nefarious is going on when the actual explanation is perfectly clear (Occam’s Razor), does not surprise me from a listener of Rob’s show, or of any other talk radio show, on the left or the right, which specializes in mocking and belittling its political enemies. I’m not calling you stupid, Jon. I’m saying that you could only make that statement if your hostility is keeping you from thinking.

    I heard Rob repeat again today a popular conservative smear of liberals, that they are liberal because they have never grown up. There is surely some truth in this charge. People who have never learned to stand on their own economically, and people who want to live undisciplined, immoral lives are naturally attracted to an ideology that believes in using government to care for the weak and needy, and that believes in privileging liberty in personal behavior, and requiring the government to pick up the pieces. However, it’s equally true that racists, haters of gay people, and people who are just too darn selfish to care about the needy are naturally attracted to conservatism. That’s just common sense. Admit it, Rob, some of these unlovely souls have taken cover in the Tea Party.

    But it would be terribly unfair – let’s be precise: it would be unkind and un-Christlike – to characterize the majority of Tea Partiers, who are good and decent and patriotic people – by the sociopathy of the minority. And it’s equally blinkered and mean-spirited to characterize liberals according to how the worst of them think and act.

    I distinguish between the Religious Right and the Religious Left and the Christian Right and the Christian Left. They’re all salt of the Earth professing Christians in their private lives. But members of the latter two groups actually try to follow Christ in the political realm, and that begins, just as it does in private life with attempting to love one’s enemy.

    No one does that consistently, and most of us, myself included, don’t do it very well. But it begins with looking for the best in one’s enemy. It begins with imputing good motives to them, and seeing if those motives don’t explain their behavior. And it certainly precludes mocking and humiliating them for sport.

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