Subtitle: Part One – Envision Utah Education & United Nations
By: Veronica Harper
I was reading an article on the United Nations (UN) website called “The Summit of the Future in 2024” and I couldn’t help but notice words like unity, shared principles, common goals, sustainable development, accelerated progress, multilateral system, new global consensus, among other words and it left me feeling anxious about the future our children will be living in. We are not global citizens and yet the UN is directing us ever closer to making us just that.
If you were to read the article without giving it much thought, you may not notice the significance of the words used. However, words matter, and the UN crafts their words in such a manner that sounds pleasing to the ear and speaks of a hopeful future. However, upon closer examination you will find an agenda, that once hidden, is now out in the open and on the fast track to controlling us on a global scale.
My first thought was we needed to get out of the UN immediately, but it also made me think about our education system here in Utah. Have you ever thought about how the education system could shape a child’s thinking, ideology, or their actions? Our education system has moved in a direction that places more emphasis on social justice and activism, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), and social emotional learning (SEL) than teaching them subjects such as math, science, and reading. Our children are losing the ability to be critical thinkers and logic-based individuals. We are purposely being distracted and divided as a nation while the UN advances their agenda to make us “good global citizens” and remove our constitutional rights using non-governmental organizations, public private partnerships, and intergovernmental agreements.
Our educational system has been under assault for a long time. It has been a slow burn until recently. Parents are waking up to the issues that affect their children. From social emotional learning, diversity, equity, & inclusion, sexual orientation, gender identity & expression, to the curriculum being taught, parents are speaking out, they are asking questions, and they are demanding change. Could this be one of the reasons the UN seems to be accelerating their mission? The future of our education system can mean the difference between a free society, or a society bound to a global master.
The article, The Summit of the Future in 2024, which I will provide the link to at the bottom, piqued my interest and I wanted to examine more closely the path our education system has taken over the last 30 years.
Enter Envision Utah. Envision Utah has been instrumental in transforming Utah to comply with the Agenda-21 model, now 2030. There might be people out there that believe Agenda-21 is a conspiracy theory, however, in 2013, Utah officially came out against this “conspiracy theory” when they passed senate joint resolution 11 (SJR11) opposing the Agenda-21 model. I had to ask myself why Utah would take this stance when legislatures, mayors, the state superintendent of public instruction and others were members of the Envision Utah board. For those who may not be aware of what Agenda-21 is, here is a brief explanation directly from the UN website.
“Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human impacts on the environment. Agenda 21, the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, and the Statement of principles for the Sustainable Management of Forests were adopted by more than 178 Governments at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 3 to 14 June 1992.
The Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) was created in December 1992 to ensure effective follow-up of UNCED, to monitor and report on implementation of the agreements at the local, national, regional and international levels. It was agreed that a five year review of Earth Summit progress would be made in 1997 by the United Nations General Assembly meeting in special session.
The full implementation of Agenda 21, the Programme for Further Implementation of Agenda 21 and the Commitments to the Rio principles, were strongly reaffirmed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) held in Johannesburg, South Africa from 26 August to 4 September 2002.”
As you can see, there is no mention of education in the above description but in the United Nations Sustainable Development document, chapter 36, education is outlined.
“Education, raising of public awareness and training are linked to virtually all areas in Agenda 21, and even more closely to the ones on meeting basic needs, capacity-building, data and information, science, and the role of major groups. This chapter sets out broad proposals, while specific suggestions related to sectoral issues are contained in other chapters. The Declaration and Recommendations of the Tbilisi Intergovernmental Conference on Environmental Education 1/ organized by UNESCO and UNEP and held in 1977, have provided the fundamental principles for the proposals in this document. Programme areas described in the present chapter are: a. Reorienting education towards sustainable development; b. Increasing public awareness; c. Promoting training.”
It is deeply concerning to me that Brad Wilson, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Stuart Adams, President, Utah State Senate, Melissa Ballard, Utah House of Representatives, Sydnee Dickson, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and our very own Governor, Spencer Cox would be sitting members of the Envision Utah Board of Directors. Are they not aware that Envision Utah seems to be implementing the same ideals as Agenda-21 and the UN? According to the Agenda21.doc:
“Understanding of the interactions between demographic trends and factors and sustainable development should be increased in all sectors of society. Stress should be placed on local and national action. Demographic and sustainable development education should be coordinated and integrated in both the formal and non-formal education sectors.”
As I read the document, I noticed the same words on a continual basis. Words such as sustainable development, governments, and international and regional organizations were used methodically and almost had a hypnotic effect on the reader. Agenda-21 was an instruction manual on how governments could educate their population on everything from water sustainability to land-use and land-resource planning. Nowhere in that document did I read things that promoted independent thought, critical thinking, logical based learning, or the entrepreneurial spirit. Would our government be willing to force conformity through education upon our children?
Again, the question came up, what are our children learning and in what manner? Is their education teaching them to believe that government control is the answer? Are they learning how to be good digital global citizens who go to work and not speak up or out on issues that concern them? Are the perils of communism, fascism, totalitarianism, and authoritarianism, to name a few being taught? Is the U.S. Constitution taught in school anymore? Are the U.S. Constitution and our state constitution disappearing and being replaced with a new global system? If this does happen, our youth will move away from truly knowing and understanding their rights. Once you no longer have dissent, you have total control of the population. Is our education system on this path?
Before it was Envision Utah, it was the Coalition for Utah’s Future. “Until the creation of Envision Utah in January 1997, no single organization existed to bring major public and private stakeholders together to coordinate activities related to growth within the region.”
As the organization grew, they used the growth model to capture every imaginable area of our life. Envision Utah created surveys and shared them with the public. It was a way to ensure public involvement in the process. However, those surveys were carefully crafted and designed to move individuals to a predetermined outcome, an outcome that supported the UN agenda. For more information regarding the surveys, check out Defending Utah’s article called, Envision Utah: Agenda-21 by Deception. I will post the link at the end of this article.
Envision Utah has grown quite extensively over the years. In a letter to legislators, dated September 14, 2000, the members of the audit subcommittee completed a review. In that 10-page letter it stated:
“There are “130 Envision Utah partners” which include government, education, business, and religious leaders. This group helps determine what policies and strategies Envision Utah promotes. The organization essentially brings decision-makers together to discuss and choose possible growth strategies and scenarios. It is currently advocating and promoting a preferred growth strategy that was developed after a series of studies, surveys, public meetings, and partnership workshops. Envision Utah has not lobbied for mandates to enforce its strategy. Rather, it favors offering incentives for compliance.”
This type of strategy allows for policies to be implemented by unelected officials and does not allow the public to oppose or question proposals, projects, or issues relating to education. While a segment of the public may have taken surveys, it is not representative of 100% of Utah’s population. Surveys are non-binding, and it does not mean people will agree with the agenda as it moves forward. The public must be able to speak with elected officials to address their concerns and grievances. Our Utah State Constitution, Article 1, Section 1 guarantees it. Envision Utah is not accountable to the public and that should cause concern for every citizen in the state of Utah.
When policy making moves away from the people and into the hands of public-private partnerships, non-governmental organizations, and global leaders using intergovernmental agreements, we lose our ability, as citizens, to govern our elected officials.
When our education system mimics the plan of the global agenda as set forth by the UN, our most precious resource, our children, is at risk. Parents should be asking tough questions and demand that Envision Utah take a step back and remove themselves from the education system. They are not elected officials and should not have a say in the education process. Parents vote school board members to their positions. I could not find any evidence of parents voting for Envision Utah to replace our elected officials. Local and state school board members will have little say if Envision Utah continues to push the United Nations ideology into our school system.
In the next installment, I will reveal ties between the UN and our education system, starting with Utah Valley University as well as the University of Utah. However, it does not stop there. Davis School District is involved as well. Stay tuned.
Sources:
https://www.un.org/en/common-agenda/summit-of-the-future
https://sdgs.un.org/publications/agenda21
https://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/Agenda%2021.pdf
https://envisionutah.org/board-of-directors
https://www.defendingutah.org/post/2015/07/27/Envision-Utah-Agenda-21-by-Deception/
https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2014-07/documents/envision_utah.pdf