I was going to write more, but I’ve decided to let the image speak for itself.

The Agenda 21 conspiracy theory is back in the media, thanks to a New York Times report on Tea Party opposition to bike lanes, smart meters, public parks and other dastardly measures that the United Nations is preparing “to deny property rights and herd citizens toward cities.”

For UN nerds and sustainable development saddos, Agenda 21 is a stunningly tedious ground-breaking attempt to bring together environment and development in a ‘dynamic programme’ to be implemented by a ‘global partnership’ of international organisations, governments, businesses, and local communities in ‘every area in which human impacts on the environment’.

Agenda 21 was agreed at the Earth Summit in 1992 and was briefly a big deal in the 1990s. Even my local Council here in rural England briefly had an Agenda 21 group. Now though, despite being regularly reaffirmed at UN summits, it’s largely forgotten. Neither has it had much, if any, impact on global development, sustainable or otherwise.

But the American right has never seen it that way. I don’t know who first read Agenda 21 and got the fear, but back in 2005, Nancy Levant (author of the anti-feminism tract, The Cultural Devastation of American Women) was already freaking out:

No one told me about Agenda 21. I found it by accident on the Internet. Then I went to the U.N.’s website and read Agenda 21…I started documenting and keeping running lists because, I discovered, Agenda 21 was huge, highly developed, and a done deal…

I also realized that there was no way to explain Agenda 21 easily. It’s too big, profoundly sophisticated, intentionally masked and hidden by corporate agendas and ecological ideologies that are, themselves, exploited by corporate agendas.

But more than that, I realized that for Americans to understand Agenda 21, they would have to come to terms with a truth that, I fear, they won’t believe. What would that truth be? Let me try to say it in one sentence: Agenda 21 is the end of America.

The paranoia, however, goes further back than that – to 2001 or possibly long before (the NYT says that Tom DeWeese has been working on the issue since 1992). At its most extreme, adherents believe that Agenda 21 is a front for a broader “global depopulation eugenics program” which will see six billion people culled from the global population.

The big boys have got in on the act, as well. Glenn Beck portrays Agenda 21 as the perfect example of how globalist elites hide their cunning plans for world domination in plain sight (he’s particularly suspicious of the local government organisation for sustainability – poor old ICLEI). Alex Jones, pushes the idea of a eugenics cult particularly hard. Even David Icke is in on the act.

The UN has always tried to ignore this stuff, imagining it will stay safely out on the fringe. But it hasn’t. Here’s Newt Gingrich opposing Agenda 21 as “a series of centralized planning provisions” that will take control of American private property.  He sees it as an example of how the UN is seeking to establish “extra-constitutional control” over the United States.

Last month, the Republican National Committee adopted a resolution recognising the “destructive and insidious” nature of Agenda 21 and the push is now on to get this condemnation onto the party’s platform for the 2012 Convention.

Opposition to Agenda 21 – and to the UN itself – is  now firmly in the Republican mainstream, in other words. The UN could do with thinking carefully about this as it prepared for the Earth Summit’s successor, Rio +20. It wouldn’t want to give the next generation of conspiracy-minded whackjobs more meat to feed on, would it?

• Scorecard co-editor and Brookings Senior Fellow Justin Vaïsse!
• Former head of UN peacekeeping and foreign affairs guru Jean-Marie Guéhenno!!
• James Traub, superstar essayist for the New York Times and Foreign Policy!!!
• Me.

This is an open event.  Fuller details and an address for RSVPs are available here.

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812, which kicked off when America made a  grab for what is now Canada.  There then followed a range of battles that nobody can remember properly, except that British redcoats torched the White House and Andrew Jackson won a historic victory in New Orleans (but a bit late, as a peace treaty had already been signed).  All very exciting, and there’s a super monument near the Niagara Falls to General Sir Isaac Brock, who came all the way from Guernsey to get shot and become a great Canadian hero (that’s him above).

But, let’s be honest, this war is pretty obscure to most people.  But now Ottawa is going all out to celebrate the war’s anniversary.  As the Economist notes in a wry piece this week, Canada arranged a symbolic exchange of cannon fire with the U.S. near the site of Brock’s death to celebrate the New Year.  And now the Ottawa Citizen reports that the government is attempting to buy up antique military equipment…

As part of the Harper government’s push to promote the War of 1812, the Department of National Defence wants to buy 20 complete uniforms with accessories and weapons to costume a War of 1812 Re-enactor Team at the Royal Military College. The re-enactors will be dressed as historically accurate representations of soldiers of a Battalion Company of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment of Fencible Infantry, from the period of 1812 to 1814. All of the uniforms, accessories and weapons must be delivered by March 30, 2012.

So what is the Canadian taxpayer’s money about to be spent on?

a.) Musket, India Pattern (Brown Bess), proofed safe to fire black powder as follows: A good quality, well made, accurate replica of the India Pattern (3rd model Brown Bess) Musket . . .

b.) Musket Sling: Leather sling, adjustable, of sufficient length to fit the sling swivels on the India Pattern musket.

c.) Brown Bess bayonet – Socket bayonet: fluted, triangular sectioned blade, approx. 16-17″ in length, sockets to fit snuggly over India Pattern musket barrel.

d.) Whisk and Prick: Cleaning tool- Hard, bristle brush and metal spike.

And so on, until you get to:

o.) Trousers (or Pantaloons): Drop-front trousers made from grey wool (Melton cloth, same weight as for tunics).

This is a little obsessive… if I were Barack Obama I’d be worrying that Stephen Harper was about to come and burn the White House again…

I can see why the world is warming to Newt. He talks a lot of sense on climate change.

My message is that the evidence is sufficient that we should move towards the most effective possible steps to reduce carbon loading in the atmosphere… and do it urgently.

Let me explain why this is a very challenging thing to do if you’re a Conservative. For most of the past thirty years, the environment has been a powerful emotional tool for bigger government and higher taxes. Therefore if you’re a Conservative, the minute you start hearing these arguments, you know what’s coming next. Just bigger government and higher taxes. So even though it might be the right thing to do, you end up fighting it because you don’t want the bigger government and the higher taxes. And so you end up in these cycles…

I think there has to be a green Conservatism. There has to be a willingness to stand up and say, “here’s the right way to solve these [problems] as seen through our value system. And now have a dialogue about what’s the most effective way to solve it, rather than get into a fight about whether to solve it. When I was speaker, on a whole range of biodiversity issues, I intervened again and again on the side of the environment. I really do believe [in the environment].

I would be delighted to see open ended hearings – not in time, but in terms of the topic – that started and said: “If we’re serious about a dramatic global reduction in carbon loading over the next twenty years – starting immediately – what are the different models that might work? Are there incentive based, market-oriented models that might work as well or faster? And is there a chance that they would produce the technology that would make it easier  for India and China to decide you can have green prosperity?”

Because if you can develop green prosperity, you change the entire trajectory for the planet, not just for the US… I would love to see hearings that didn’t start with a fight over cap and trade… which I don’t think is the way to start. The way to start is to ask what the optimum choices we can make strategically to minimize carbon loading in the next twenty years.

I believe we can bring a science, technology, and entrepreneurship/incentive-based model that would at least be worth being considered seriously by the House and Senate.

Two minor caveats. First, I don’t think  Gingrich ever developed his idea for an incentive-based model that wasn’t cap and trade. And, of course, this is from back in 2007. I hear the ex-Speaker’s position has evolved been more intelligently designed since then. Here’s the 2011 version:

Remember, in the mid-1970’s there was a cover of Newsweek and Time that says we’re in the age of a brand new glacial period and they had a cover of the Earth covered in ice. This is the 1970’s. Now many of those scientists are still alive and they were absolutely convinced. I mean, if Al Gore were able to in the 1970’s we would build huge furnaces to warm the planet against this inevitable coming Ice Age.

I’m not disputing or discrediting the National Academy of Sciences, I’m saying a topic large enough to change the behavior of the entire human race is a topic that is more than science and deserves public hearings with very tough minded public questions and we’ve had almost none of that on either side.

The ‘more than science’ hearings should be fun! Perhaps Newt will explain what happened to evidence that was sufficient to demand urgent action just four years ago…

I believe America is an exceptional and unique nation. President Obama feels that we’re going to be a nation which has multipolar balancing militaries. I believe that American military superiority is the right course.

President Obama says that we have people throughout the world with common interests. I just don’t agree with him.

Mitt – the man who would say anything to be President.

Brought to your courtesy of the Atlantic. Click here or on the image above for a full size version.

Politico reports that Eighties muscle god Fabio thinks that President Obama is too European.  Sure, that’s not a new accusation.  But Fabio has an insider’s take:

“I come from Europe.  I don’t want this country to go the way Europe went. I believe in the American people, I don’t believe in the politicians. The politicians already ruined the rest of the world. This is the only country on the face of the planet where still things work. We don’t want to ruin it, we want to keep it the way it is. It’s called the American dream. It’s not called the European dream.”

When Fabio says that “things still work” in the U.S., we must assume he’s giving Congress a free pass.  Well, we’re glad he’s got all that off his mighty chest!