Agenda 21: Saving Earth or Stealing Liberty? [VIDEO]

A dozen members and friends of the John Birch Society converged outside City Hall on Saturday holding signs and passing out fliers.

The air was cold; the foot traffic, slow.

"We're here to get this Agenda 21 exposed and out of New Hampshire," said Hal Shurtleff, regional director for the conservative political action group.

The goal Saturday was to inform residents about ICLEI, International Council on Local Environmental Initiative, and ask the community to join the John Birch Society in an effort to "Kick ICLEI out of Nashua," said Shurtleff.

Nashua is one of four New Hampshire towns and cities that belong to ICLEI, along with Keene, Portsmouth and Wolfboro.

Shurtleff said municipal governments like Nashua are "buying into" the United Nations' Agenda 21 without even knowing what it means to residents.

As stated by the United Nations, Agenda 21 was established in 1992 as a "global plan of action" to address human impact on the environment, water supply, forests, mining, climate change and poverty.

Shurtleff contends ICLEI is the force behind "subversive efforts like smart growth and sustainability," which his group believes to be a smokescreen for erosion of individual Constitutional liberties.

He was particularly critical of the efforts of real estate developer , currently engaged in a public/private partnership with Nashua to develop the 26-acre Bridge Street Project, a revitalization project that would create mixed-use housing and retail development in a depressed area along the river.

Opposition to ICLEI and Agenda 21 has been embraced and magnified by the Tea Party movement, which has mounted similar protests in pockets around the country and, in some cases, have managed to sway city officials away from projects already in the works.

A February 3 New York Times story about the impact such Agenda 21 "conspiracy theorists" are having talks about how this movement, which started as a fringe opposition 20 years ago, has grown of late, along with Tea Party fervor.

The story mentions several examples, including a Tea Party-backed Republican governor in Maine "who canceled a project to ease congestion along the Route 1 corridor" after protesters complained it was part of a UN plot; a high-speed train line in Florida that was thwarted; and dropped funding for programs that measure carbon emissions in other towns and cities around the country.

"One of the reasons we're out here is to inform the people, but also to get information from the city, on what they've done to implement ICLEI policies," Shurtleff said.

Nashua joined ICLEI in 2007, and pays about $1,200 annually in dues in return for tools and software which has been used by the City's Green Team.

Mayor Donnalee Lozeau said she took a look at some of the material distributed by the John Birch Society, and was not impressed. She called it sensational and "frightening."

"For one thing, it flies in the face of the kinds of things we're talking about in Nashua, like doing away with Bronstein Park. They say we're promoting 'stack'em and pack'em' housing projects. They're also saying things that just aren't true, that people will lose their right to use water – we just bought the water company – or travel freely without ID; frankly, it's ridiculous," Lozeau said.

"Sustainable development is a good thing. We have a responsibility to our community to be good stewards of our resources, and I think it's unfortunate they are saying that ICLEI will control how you live and what ordinances Nashua passes, or that people will lose their rights and their autonomy," Lozeau said.

Amended legislation in New Hampshire, HB1634, calls for "establishing a committee to study the implementation of United Nations Agenda 21 into the state, counties, regional commissions, towns, and cities."

"All these policies stem from this so-called global warming, which doesn't exist. It's one of the major pillars of Agenda 21," Shurtleff said. "The science is bad, and because the science is bad, the policies are bad."

When asked, Shurtleff could not specify what policies Nashua has passed that encroach on the rights of Nashua residents.

"Agenda 21 is the basis of all this. If anyone looks at Agenda 21 and what it entails, it's a gigantic massive power transfer to an international entity," Shurtleff said.

A conference is planned in June in New York to mark the 20th anniversary of Agenda 21, called Rio+20.

More online: A link to UN Agenda 21 home page.