The Earth Charter: Green on the Outside, Red on the Inside

Herewith a partial list of all the things wrong with the Earth Charter, any one of which would be a 'nuff said in itself:

1. While the Earth Charter people describe their project as "a broad-based, voluntary, civil society effort," it is clearly anything but a grass-roots movement. It is spearheaded by a bunch of Euro-leftist elitists, academic types and UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). Ex-Soviet dictator Mikhail Gorbachev and his Green Cross International are prime movers in the Earth Charter project.

2. Because the Earth Charter is the product of a bunch of Euro-leftist elitists, academic types, UNESCO, and ex-Soviet dictators, it proceeds from an utterly unrealistic view of the world, of reality, and of human nature. For example, the Earth Charter lists among its goals the elimination of poverty and the elimination of corruption in all public and private institutions, thereby overlooking the reality of original sin and the admonition of Jesus that the poor we will always have with us.

3. The Earth Charter is based on the assumption that puny humanity, going about its everyday life and improving its standard of living, has the power to destroy a planet that, for the last 4.6 billion years, has survived, unruffled, meteoric impacts, volcanoes, tornadoes, vast floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, solar flares, and other catastrophes, none of which we can even come close to reproducing.

4. The Earth Charter promotes universal health care, redistribution of wealth, vitiation of private property rights -- in short, socialism.

5. The Earth Charter promotes global government.

6. The Earth Charter contains what are tantamount to built-in emergency powers that may be triggered arbitrarily. Pursuant to Article I, Section 6, Paragraph (a), the Charter would authorize whatever governing authority is acting pursuant to its provisions to "take action to avoid the possibility of serious or irreversible environmental harm even when scientific knowledge is incomplete or inconclusive." The following paragraph would "place the burden of proof on those who argue that a proposed activity will not cause significant harm, and make the responsible parties liable for environmental harm." All of this proves that the Earth Charter is nothing more than a governmental power grab and not concerned with protecting the environment.

7. The Earth Charter would destroy the free market. Article I, Section 7, Paragraph (d) provides: "Internalize the full environmental and social costs of goods and services in the selling price, and enable consumers to identify products that meet the highest social and environmental standards."

8. The Earth Charter is pro-contraception and pro-abortion. Article I, Section 7, Paragraph (e) provides that the Charter would "ensure universal access to health care that fosters reproductive health and responsible reproduction. " Nobody can reasonably argue that these are not code words for abortion and population control.

9. The Earth Charter purports to create synthetic rights, such as the "rights" to potable water, safe food and sanitary living conditions, that actually serve to vitiate authentic human rights, especially the right to private property. Article III, Section 9, Paragraph (a) provides that these "rights" are to be guaranteed by "allocating the national and international resources required" -- i.e., legalized looting.

10. While Article III, Section 12 of the Earth Charter purports to guarantee freedom of religion, it also purports to guarantee a "right" of "indigenous people" "to their spirituality, knowledge, lands and resources and to their related practice of sustainable livelihoods." That would seem to make a crime out of spreading the Gospel, thereby vitiating the religious freedom of, oh, Christians.

11. The Earth Charter purports, at one and the same time, to drill children and youth in "contribut[ing] actively to sustainable development" and to guarantee the right of dissent. Does anybody seriously think dissent from the Religion of Sustainability would ever be tolerated under the Earth Charter?

12. The Earth Charter is full of New Age baloney. Article IV, Section 16, Paragraph (f) stipulates: "Recognize that peace is the wholeness created by right relationships with oneself, other persons, other cultures, other life, Earth, and the larger whole of which all are a part." Yuck.

And last, but certainly not least:

13. The Earth Charter is utterly Godless.

It would be easier to list all the things that are not wrong with the Earth Charter.