Glenn Beck and Harriet Parke. Agenda 21. Threshold, 2012.
“They think they can mandate things. Create this much energy every day. have this many babies every year. But it just doesn’t work like that. The more new laws and regulations they issue, the worse the results are.”
I had no idea what they were talking about. (26)
We pledge our allegiance
To the wisdom of the Central Authority.
We pledge our dedication
To the earth and to its preservation. (86 passim)
About ten years ago when Agenda 21 came out, dystopian novels were big sellers, especially to the young adult (YA) audience. Think of The Hunger Games and Divergent. This is Glenn Beck’s contribution, though there is evidence that a greater contribution came from his co-author Ms. Parke.
Now the two other series mentioned both played on youth identity crises to some degree. Agenda 21 does also. Our main character is Emmeline, fourteen at the beginning of the book. The United States, or at least part of it, is now called simply the Republic. It takes on some of the worst parts of Communism with a focus on radical environmentalism. People are seen to be the cause of all the problems in the natural world, so most of the country is left fallow and people are prohibited to travel outside the compounds (communes?) where they live and work.
The compounds include concrete apartment buildings with one room to a person or a couple. Children are reared by the state. There are echoes of Brave New World here, except that the state has not yet developed the manufacturing of human beings in that novel. The off-limits land outside of the compounds reminded me of the hinterlands of John the Savage in Brave New World or the wilderness of We.
Emmeline lives with her mother and father in one such compound. She was one of the last people to be reared by her own parents. This makes her a kind of freak to others her age. She has just menstruated for the first time. The authorities require this information to be reported. She undergoes a physical exam, and pretty soon she is “paired.” There is no romance; mates are assigned. Babies are expected and taken to the child care compound as soon as they are born.
Some people do work at the child care unit. Some people work on transportation. Automobiles and most transportation except the railroads have been outlawed. Railroads are used virtually only for freight. Transportation is either by bicycle or bus-box, carts pulled by six people. Emmeline’s father, for example, pulls a bus-box for a Transport Team. Human horsepower.
It is understood that the world was almost destroyed by energy demands. Now people produce most of the electrical energy being used. Bicycles all have generators that get discharged. Most people who are not working for the government work on “boards,” treadmill-like devices that produce energy. Everyone is expected to produce a quota of energy every day. Punishment or some kind of deprivation result for those who do not produce.
Through most of the book, Emmeline simply goes to work every day on her board to produce electricity. The people are fed nutrition cubes twice a day along with a daily quota of water. When Emmeline becomes pregnant, she sometimes get an egg in addition to the nutrient cube. Some older people remember the old days when people prepared meals and dishes, perhaps a bit like Winston Smith remembering real chocolate bars in 1984.
Life is regulated and, frankly, very boring. Authorities cannot understand why so many young people are not producing babies and why many of the children raised in the child care compounds are physically unfit. Unlike Brave New World, there is no soma drug to give relief. Not even vodka, which was ubiquitous in the old Soviet Union.
Meanwhile, around them and outside the limited compound areas, wildlife thrives. People are commended for feeding squirrels and birds. Let nature take its course and the oxygen supply will increase. Let most energy be created by the people themselves.
The government is simply called the Authority. There are no elections. Stories about elections tell how foolish and superficial they were. I was reminded of the footrace from The Aeneid where the racer Euryalus who cheated is voted the winner because he was good looking. Vergil was writing for the Emperor Augustus who had gotten rid of the republic. Dictatorship and monarchy are superior in both fantasy worlds.
The term Agenda 21 does not appear in the story. Unlike the fictional Republic, Agenda 21 is real. It is the 300 page environmental protocol passed by the United Nations as part of the Rio Accords in 1992. Beck and Parke imagine what would happen if all of those protocols were actually adopted. Maybe “nature” would prevail, but what would happen to humanity?
I was a little surprised to see cover endorsements from action-adventure authors Brad Thor and Nelson DeMille on what I thought would be a political analysis. This review has mostly described the setting, but the story is a page turner. Emmeline faces numerous challenges including multiple pairings when previous ones are not productive, and, especially when she finally does give birth and has to give up her baby immediately. What happens to mothers? to families?
This is neither the “boot in the face” of 1984 or the psycho-sexual fantasy of Brave New World though some elements like the wilderness area may have echoes of that novel. This is not a post-apocalyptic disaster novel like much sci-fi. This Republic may avoid the eco-apocalypse, but we are reminded that “scientific” social structures from Plato to Marcuse to Xi may look good on paper, but the reality reminds us that humans are not squirrels, and the life well lived will have friends, family, and a higher purpose.