Rio+20 sustainability conference: trusts countries after all, but ignores squirrels

While the United Nations packs some highly questionable notions into its Rio+20 “The Future We Want”, it might be helpful to note the suggested changes that weren’t incorporated into it.

To their credit, our UN friends are at least somewhat open about what went into “The Future We Want” draft as seen here and in the links on that page about the draft’s markups. The link for “Major Groups comments on section III – V” goes to another page where a PDF file called “Major Group Amendments” tells us what suggestions were made to the draft.  It’s a mind-numbing document to read, but a couple of items pop up in a random skim through it.

On page 98, the International Centre of Comparative Environmental Law (CIDCE) wanted to completely delete paragraph #28 under section III’s “Green Economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty
eradication”, which read ” We recognize that each country, respecting specific realities of economic, social and environmental development as well as particular conditions and priorities, will make the appropriate choices.”

And at the bottom of page 269, a group called the International Organization for the Protection and Welfare of Squirrels wanted to reword the #94 “Mountains” paragraph to have the additional sentence in the square brackets here:  We recognize that mountains are highly vulnerable to global changes such as climate change [, changes that affect not only the human population, but the many Species of wild animals that inhabit the mountains, some of them of a vital importance and value for the life of mountains- such as Squirrels, which are credited with maintaining and developing the forests for millions of years by burying the nuts and planting the trees …]

Kudos to the UN for at least believing countries will make appropriate choices for ‘framing the context of the green economy’.  But they apparently aren’t overly concerned with squirrel sustainability.

    (full disclosure:  your humble JunkScience guest blogger here is Russell Cook, who has been tapped by CFACT to be the media contact for their visit to Rio+20)