"Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized nations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about?"
- Mr. Maurice Strong, head of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and until recently, Executive Officer for Reform in the U.N. Secretary General's office, 1 September 1997
Fox News reports:
Maurice Strong, the godfather of global environmentalism and organizer of the United Nations' 1992 Rio environmental Earth Summit, is making a quiet comeback to the limelight on the eve of that meeting’s successor, the Rio + 20 summit on "sustainable development," which starts June 20 in Brazil.
Strong, 82, has been taking part in a variety of conference side-events prior to the three-day meeting of some 130 top-level international leaders, part of a growing wave of hoopla and promotion that will climax at the summit leadership sessions.
His appearance at Rio + 20 is also the latest stage in a Long March through controversy that has kept Strong, a native Canadian who is widely deemed to be one of the key instigators of the global environmental movement, living a low-profile life in China for the past half-decade.
And what is Strong’s radical agenda?
Three of the continuing, controversial themes of Strong's long U.N. career, are uppermost at Rio + 20: strong support for China as a world power, a greater role for global regulation of the environment, and a radical overhaul of the world’s economic system.
All three will be on prominent display in Rio, where Sha Zukang serves as conference secretary general, "global environmental governance" is a conference theme, and developed and developing countries are battling over wealth transfers worth trillions in the context of "sustainable development" and measures to establish a new, "global green economy,"
For his part, Strong an avowed life-long socialist, has been publicly arguing the need for urgent action on the Rio + 20 conference agenda, extolling the need for a revitalized greenhouse gas suppression agenda and a "revolution" in the world economy in, a June 4 article in Latin America that used his senior advisor title.
"Rio+20 must reinforce international efforts to reach agreement and renewal of the Climate Change Convention and its implementation," he declared.
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