Sixteen million teachers must be trained, he noted, and "the only way to move forward is by integrating the Earth Charter into curriculum."

The Rockefeller-Gorbachev Earth Charter effort is already fast at work on that score. Their website declares:

The Earth Charter values and principles must be taught, contemplated, applied and internalized. To this end, the Earth Charter needs to be incorporated into both formal and non-formal education. This process must involve various communities, continue to integrate the Charter into the curriculum of schools and universities, and constitute an ongoing process of life-long learning.

According to the same website, the Earth Council, UNESCO, and the Earth Charter Initiative folks already have many of the curriculum materials and programs prepared; in fact, they’re already up and running in schools across the globe. Some American schools got an advance start on the rest of humanity with Charter activities, coinciding with the journey last year of the Ark and its contents to the UN in New York. The pilgrimage began in Vermont, where Steven Rockefeller, in his role as dean of religion at Middlebury College, held a sacred Earth ceremony. Joining him and the other worshipers was Jane Goodall, the celebrity chimpanzee expert who has become a fixture at forums sponsored by Mikhail Gorbachev and the UN. The Charter was carried on foot, by car, and by boat, arriving in New York City on November 8th, to be greeted by Pete Seeger, the leftist folksinger. On January 24th, the Ark and Charter were carried in a procession from the Interfaith Center of New York to the United Nations Church Center Chapel, a distance of about 15 blocks.

The Charter’s authors are not shy about the importance of their handiwork. "My hope is that this charter will be a kind of Ten Commandments, a ‘Sermon on the Mount,’ that provides a guide for human behavior toward the environment in the next century and beyond," Gorbachev stated in a 1997 interview with the Los Angeles Times.

Canadian billionaire socialist Maurice Strong, who presided over the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, is somewhat less tentative. "The real goal of the Earth Charter," said Strong, "is that it will in fact become like the Ten Commandments." (Emphasis added.) Mr. Strong had high hopes that the Charter, conceived in 1987, would be adopted by the world at Rio. Alas, there were too many other messianic projects on Gaia’s burners at that confab. Gaia, the Greek goddess of Earth, has become the supreme deity in the green theology of the militant environmentalists.

In his opening address to the Rio summit, Strong directed the world’s attention to the "Declaration of the Sacred Earth," which was part of the pre-Summit ceremonies. "The changes in behavior and direction called for here," said Strong, "must be rooted in our deepest spiritual, moral, and ethical values." According to the declaration, "The [ecological] crisis transcends all national, religious, cultural, social, political and economic boundaries." "The responsibility of each human being today is to choose between the force of darkness and the force of light," Strong exhorted. "We must therefore transform our attitudes and values, and adopt a renewed respect for the superior laws of Divine Nature."

The "Sacred" Text

"The protection of Earth’s vitality, diversity, and beauty is a sacred trust," the Earth Charter asserts. However, "an unprecedented rise in human population has overburdened ecological and social systems. The foundations of global security are threatened." Thus, "we urgently need a shared vision of basic values to provide an ethical foundation for the emerging world community."

According to the Charter, we must:

"Recognize that all beings are interdependent and every form of life has value...." (Unborn children, of course, are not included in the UN’s definition of "every form of life." The Earth Summit II documents continue to support the UN’s pro-abortion policies.)

"Affirm faith in the inherent dignity of all human beings." (UN agencies, however, support policies of euthanasia for those determined not capable of living a "quality" life.)

"Adopt at all levels sustainable development plans and regulations..[Ednote: Prince Charles's Agenda].." (This is a prescription for global socialism in a super-regulated global state.)

"Prevent pollution of any part of the environment...." (Enforcing this dictum would mean stopping virtually all human activity.)

"Internalize the full environmental and social costs of goods and services in the selling price." (This seemingly harmless sentence would empower the state to price, tax, and regulate all production and consumption.)

"Ensure universal access to health care that fosters reproductive health and responsible reproduction. (This is a thinly disguised call for socialized medicine that includes abortion and population control.)

"Eliminate discrimination in all its forms, such as that based on race … [and] sexual orientation." (This provision is clearly aimed at criminalizing those who refuse to accept homosexuality as positive and good.)

"Promote the equitable distribution of wealth within nations and among nations. (Few Marxist documents have put their "redistribution of wealth" program more plainly.)
The Charter includes much, much more. It ends with this stirring exhortation: "In order to build a sustainable global community, the nations of the world must renew their commitment to the United Nations, fulfill their obligations under existing international agreements, and support the implementation of Earth Charter principles with an international legally binding instrument on environment and development."

The Charter will soon be making its way to schools, city governments, state legislatures, teachers organizations, civic groups, professional associations, judges, and law schools. The aforementioned Global Judges Symposium concluded its summit activities by issuing the so-called Johannesburg Principles on the Rule of Law and Sustainable Development. "We recognize," it states, "the importance of ensuring that environmental law and law in the field of sustainable development feature prominently in academic curricula, legal studies and training at all levels, in particular among judges and others engaged in the judicial process."

The judicial symposium was sponsored by the United Nations Environmental Program (largely supported by U.S. tax dollars) and the Environmental Law Institute, one of the principal eco-activist legal groups supported by U.S. tax-exempt foundations.

For the amount of time, effort, and money invested in the Earth Charter program over the past decade, its profile at the recent Johannesburg Earth Summit was remarkably subdued. Apparently, the plan is to orchestrate a global stealth campaign for the Charter among a sympathetic core constituency. As the campaign picks up steam, activists will obtain signatures and public support for this new global ethic from local, state, and national governments, schools, and organizations — without stirring the suspicions and opposition of churches, pro-life, and pro-family forces. Once a critical mass of support has been built among students, teachers, journalists, and public officials, the Charter will appear to be universally accepted and unstoppable.

Americans can make sure that that scheme does not work by informing themselves and their friends and neighbors about this blatantly diabolical and blasphemous deception.

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