Environmental Hypocrisy at Rio-20

For 20 years, the United Nations has warned that humanity will soon face doom if it fails to adopt “sustainable development” policies and protect the earth’s environment. However, U.N. officials seem to think the rules they seek to establish for everyone else are not applicable to them, as their behavior at environmental conferences shows.

A much-hyped 1992 environmental conference in Rio produced a plan called “Agenda 21” which detailed a strategy to promote sustainability. Like many other U.N. initiatives, Agenda 21 has proven to be all talk and no action.

In the past, the liberal media have misled the public by pretending these meetings are significant in effecting global policy. Former Vice President Al Gore led the hype propaganda around the Copenhagen summit of 2009. Commenting on President Obama’s decision to attend the Copenhagen summit, former Vice President Al Gore stated: “This action is another example of the significant change in policy on the climate crisis.” Yet Copenhagen, like virtually every other climate change meeting, produced no results, as the Business and Media Institute has pointed out.

This year, the much over-hyped United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, commonly referred to as Rio+20, has been no different. Even environmentalist groups have expressed their displeasure at the results of the conference. The World Wildlife Fund claimed the conference was “less than satisfactory from any point of view” and feared if nothing happened it “will have been a colossal waste of time.”

Not only has Rio+20 been a waste of time – it is also a major source of the much criticized carbon emissions. Rio+20 is the largest conference in U.N. history, with over 115 presidents and prime ministers attending. This event has drawn more than 50,000 people from over 180 different countries. Most have been taking airplanes, a confirmed source of the carbon emissions that Rio-20 seeks to reduce.

If they really were concerned about greenhouse emissions, they would find other ways to hold the conference. Conference calls, for instance, use far less energy.

Instead it seems that “green” activists are more interested in taking vacations under the guise of halting the specter of climate change, rather than taking action. A little more than six months ago, 15,000 sustainability activists met in Durban, South Africa to host yet another ineffective discussion. Over the past 20 years, trips to discuss sustainability were held in the luxurious locations of Barbados, Cancun, Paris, Copenhagen, and Johannesburg.

Apparently, talking about halting climate change can be awfully beneficial – to delegates looking for vacation time.