CV NEWS FEED // A city council in the United Kingdom has roundly rejected a major progressive “green” initiative taking hold across much of Europe.
Online videos have been circulating of a March 14 meeting of the Green Party-led Glastonbury Town Council members. In the video, they adamantly argue why they want no part of the “15-minute city” movement.
According to advocates, in a “15-minute city” all necessary institutions, resources, and utilities are within a 15-minute walking or bicycling distance for each resident. Cities in the United Kingdom have been pressured to convert to “15-minutes” as part of the nation’s plan to cut all emissions by 2030.
Stuart “Lange” Langelaan, an English DJ, tweeted a 12-minute video clip of the March 14 council meeting. “Glastonbury Town Council is awake to the #15minuteCities agenda & won’t be participating,” Lange wrote.
“As far as this council is concerned, we’re not doing 15-minute cities,” said then-Glastonbury Mayor Jon Cousins at the beginning of the clip.
Cousins is a member of the Green Party of England and Wales and a self-described community organizer and activist. He left the mayoral office in May but remains a member of the town council.
When another member pressed Cousins to clarify who would “fight it,” he replied, “I think Glastonbury would fight it.”
“We represent the people of Glastonbury,” he added. “If the people of Glastonbury don’t want 15-minute cities, then we represent that, don’t we? That’s what we’re here for.”
Also speaking at the meeting was Sandi Adams, who describes herself in her Twitter bio as a Southwest UK-based “International Speaker, Writer & Campaigner against WEF & UN Agenda 21/2030, 15 minute cities & Net Zero.”
“The whole 15-minute city ideology is not a grassroots initiative. It’s actually a global initiative,” she stated. Adams explained that the concept emerged around 20 years ago, largely created by French urban planner Carlos Moreno, who was once a Marxist revolutionary in his native Colombia. She also noted the contributions of former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and former UK Prime Minister and London Mayor Boris Johnson.
Adams tied the push for 15-minute cities to the much larger “net zero” movement, which is openly promoted by the United Nations (UN). The UN’s website states:“Put simply, net zero means cutting greenhouse gas emissions to as close to zero as possible.” It is important to reach these levels, the UN states, “in order to avert the worst impacts of climate change.”
READ MORE: HOW THE GREEN ENERGY AGENDA HURTS THE POOR
“Transitioning to a net-zero world is one of the greatest challenges humankind has faced,” the UN website continues. “It calls for nothing less than a complete transformation of how we produce, consume, and move about.”
Adams fears that if the UK continues to embrace net zero, the British people “will literally be imprisoned on [their] own island.”
“You think it’s a green agenda to save the planet. It is not,” she said.
Glastonbury is a town in South West England with a permanent population of roughly 9,000. Lying in the ceremonial county of Somerset, it is close to the city of Bristol and the Welsh border.
The town is best known for the Glastonbury Festival, informally known as “Glasto,” a summer music and performing arts event. The five-day jamboree temporarily causes the number of people in Glastonbury to swell, sometimes to around 200,000 people, creating an atmosphere of what The Guardian calls a “medium-sized city.”
