Women bear brunt of 'climate change'?

Women bear brunt of 'climate change'?
Pete Chagnon - OneNewsNow - 11/24/2009 7:00:00 AM
www.onenewsnow.com

A United Nations group that promotes abortion has released some controversial recommendations concerning "global warming."

According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), birth control and access to family-planning facilities can be a valuable weapon in the fight against supposed "climate change." The UNFPA sites overpopulation as one of the factors in the earth's "capacity to adjust" to climate change.

In an article published on GMANews.tv, a representative from the Philippines notes that climate change could affect women the worst, as women in that country might be driven into the sex trade as climate change reduces income from farming and fishing. The Fund uses this scenario to justify its call for the distribution of birth control and its call to slow population growth.

James Taylor, a senior fellow and environment policy expert with The Heartland Institute, labels the UNFPA's recommendations "preposterous."

"Even if we were facing a global-warming [crisis], the problem wouldn't be so much that we have too many people -- the problem would be...that we need to utilize our energy in a more efficient manner," he explains.

Improved energy efficiency, he continues, "can certainly be done without encouraging people to get abortions or to have infanticide like they do in China or to seek to limit human population. Human beings are a tremendous resource -- and [they] are not the problem on the planet."

Taylor contends the U.N. Population Fund is trying to link its radical agenda to alleged climate change only to gain support from environmentalists and to use the elite liberal media to get their message across. The Fund, however, admits that it is hard to link the two issues.

Cartoon and quote

According to a UNESCO statement from some years ago, "It is often the family that infects the children with extreme nationalism."
A love for one's country is to be treated like some kind of disease, lest it hinder the goal of "peace at all costs."

Cartoon and quote from parentalrights.org

CEDAW and Homeschooling Families

(From www.hslda.org)

July 16, 2009
William A. Estrada, Esq.

Director of Federal Relations

Introduction

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) has been at the forefront of HSLDA’s lobbying efforts recently, but there is another UN convention that may also be sent to the United States Senate for ratification, and would also threaten home educating families: the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).1

CEDAW calls for sweeping changes in law and policy to eliminate “all forms” of discrimination against women. It was drafted around the time that the Equal Rights Amendment movement was at its zenith. If ratified (requiring two-thirds of the Senate or 67 senators to approve it), CEDAW would become the supreme law of the land under the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause in Article VI, thus trumping state laws and being used as binding precedent by state and federal judges.

Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1979, CEDAW was signed by President Carter’s administration in 1980. Now that the women’s treaty has a favorable majority in the U.S. Senate and supporters in the Obama administration, proponents of CEDAW are pushing to have it ratified.

Why is CEDAW Dangerous to Homeschooling Families?

The greatest danger posed by CEDAW is its requirement that curricula be revised to ensure that there is no differentiation made on the basis of gender. CEDAW’s Article 10 gives the government the power to make these revisions: “States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women … and in particular to ensure … the elimination of any stereotyped concept of the roles of men and women at all levels and in all forms of education by encouraging coeducation and other types of education which will help to achieve this aim and, in particular, by the revision of textbooks and school programmes and the adaptation of teaching methods.” Under the guise of eliminating bias against women, CEDAW attempts to eliminate any differentiation between the sexes.

CEDAW prohibits making distinctions between the roles of mother and father, and teaching a traditional understanding of the family. Children are to be taught that they can get along just as well with two mothers or two fathers, and any attempt to show otherwise could be considered discrimination against women.

If CEDAW is ratified, Congress will not only acquire the duty to implement the treaty, but it will also acquire the jurisdiction necessary to pass legislation to comply. Such necessarily far-reaching legislation will impact the education of all children, including those who attend homeschools and private Christian schools.

Another danger posed by CEDAW, just like the CRC, is that a committee of “experts” on gender issues from 23 foreign nations has the power to supervise all nations that ratify CEDAW, to ensure that they are taking steps to enforce the convention’s requirements. This strikes at the heart of our system of representative government, where elected officials represent us in state legislatures and in Washington, D.C. No one on this committee has ever been elected by a U.S. voter, yet the committee would make rulings that could affect the lives of all U.S. residents.

Possibly most shocking of all, under the Optional Protocol to CEDAW passed by the UN General Assembly in 1999, individuals or groups who disagree with how the treaty is enforced by Congress and the U.S. judicial system can take claims alleging violations of CEDAW directly to the CEDAW Committee. The CEDAW Committee has an “inquiry procedure” whereby it can directly investigate possible CEDAW violations.

Conclusion

It is possible that CEDAW will be sent to the U.S. Senate for a ratification vote this year, even before the CRC. Regardless of which treaty is sent first, it is imperative that homeschoolers and other freedom-loving Americans work together to defeat both.

We will continue to monitor this treaty, as well as the CRC, and provide updates.

Endnotes

1. All references are from the text of CEDAW, located on the United Nations website at http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/text/econvention.htm