Activists protesting green projects, saying they're a U.N. plot
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Across the country, activists with ties to the tea party are railing against all sorts of local and state efforts to control sprawl and conserve energy. They say government action in service of expanding public transportation routes and preserving open space is part of a United Nations-led conspiracy to deny property rights and herd citizens toward cities.
They are showing up at planning meetings to denounce bike lanes on public streets and smart meters on home appliances -- efforts they equate to a big-government blueprint against individual rights.
"Down the road, this data will be used against you," warned one speaker at a recent meeting of the Roanoke County, Va., Board of Supervisors, who turned out with dozens more opposing the county's payment of $1,200 in dues to a nonprofit that consults on sustainability issues.
Local officials say they would dismiss such notions, except that the growing protests are having an effect.
In Maine, the tea party-backed Republican governor canceled a project to ease congestion along the Route 1 corridor after protesters complained that it was part of the U.N. plot. Similar opposition helped doom a Florida high-speed train line. And more than a dozen communities have cut off financing for a program on how to measure and cut carbon emissions.
"It sounds a little on the weird side, but we've found we ignore it at our own peril," said George Homewood, a vice president of the American Planning Association's chapter in Virginia.
The protests date to 1992, when the United Nations passed a sweeping but nonbinding 100-plus-page resolution called Agenda 21, designed to encourage nations to use fewer resources and conserve open land by steering development to already-dense areas. They have gained momentum in the last two years because of the emergence of the tea party movement, harnessing its suspicion about government power and a belief that man-made global warming is a hoax.
In January, the Republican Party adopted its own resolution against what it called "the destructive and insidious nature" of Agenda 21. And former House Speaker Newt Gingrich took aim at it in November, during a Republican presidential candidates' debate.
First Published February 4, 2012 12:00 am
