Something WCED this way comes
by Not Sure
2 November 2025
The Brundtland Commission was initially called the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) and was established by the United Nations in 1983 under the leadership of Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Prime Minister of Norway. The commission is perhaps best known for its 1987 publication, Our Common Future, which introduced this widely accepted definition of sustainable development:
Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
This report has contributed much to shaping global environmental policy, especially in those pivotal decades after the 1968 publication of The Population Bomb, the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, and the report commissioned by the Club of Rome, The Limits to Growth, released in 1972. It was a major influence on the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and the later adoption of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, which as it turns out are also communicable.)
When Alan Watt was a young musician, he spent a fair bit of time touring and performing in Norway. One night after an important show featuring up and coming musicians, some of the performers were approached by a member of the audience, Gro Harlem Brundtland. She visited with them and invited them to a small gathering at her home. It was there that Alan had a lengthy conversation with Brundtland about her ideas for Norway and the world. At the time, Brundtland was the Minister of Environment for Norway. A short time later, she became Norway’s first female prime minister.
Alan Watt’s conversation with Gro Harlem Brundtland contributed to his deep understanding of an unfolding agenda, and the kinds of people who are involved in planning and implementing each phase of it. He described her as ‘quite pleasant and likable’ and as the type of person who thought they knew best how other people should live and behave.
Our Common Future had a Chairman’s Forward written by Brundtland. Here is the opening line:
"A global agenda for change" - this was what the World Commission on Environment and Development was asked to formulate.
Brundtland writes that she understood when she was asked to chair this commission by the United Nations, that she was being asked to perform no small task, and that as Party leader, the demands this would place upon her “made it seem plainly prohibitive.” But the UN Secretary-General “presented me with an argument to which there was no convincing rebuttal: No other political leader had become Prime Minister with a background of several years of political struggle, nationally and internationally, as an environment minister. This gave some hope that the environment was not destined to remain a side issue in central, political decision making.”
In this assessment, Brundtland was correct. The environment, climate change, and sustainability have become talking points that no politician can avoid. More importantly, the supranational bodies that dictate policy were poised at that time to take away even the appearance of national sovereignty on a host of issues deemed to have global significance. The real ‘shadow’ or supranational governance made its presence felt in the 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC) or the Panic of 2008. Most recently, we saw the long arms of global bodies during The Event Known as COVID-19.
Here is another interesting paragraph from Brundtland’s forward:
But first and foremost our message is directed towards people, whose well being is the ultimate goal of all environment and development policies. In particular, the Commission is addressing the young. The world's teachers will have a crucial role to play in bringing this report to them.
I don’t know about you, but I am ‘people’ and I didn’t hear about Our Common Future. I don’t recall that it was given broad news coverage. Its contents were not read by the town crier. But I am quite sure that the Commission went to great lengths to ensure that it was “addressing the young” and the world’s teachers with their “crucial role to play in bringing this report to them.” Some iteration of this report with fun game ideas, scary-icecaps-melting-and-homeless-polar-bears-scenarios, coloring books, and term paper “suggestions” will have made it into Teacher Toolkits every year since Our Common Future was released in 1987.
I received my first lecture from a nephew on the need to recycle way back in the 1990s, and in the early 2000s, a niece told me in no uncertain terms that using plastic was wildly irresponsible. She was livid, hostile, inflamed, and loudly vocal as she held me singly responsible for destroying the planet. Go Gro! Job well done.
This Alan Watt Redux is from April 14, 2008.
"While inflicting torture and pain,
Our masters make hay for financial gain –
The end of morality
in the
new
corporate feudal system"
© Alan Watt April 14, 2008
Towards the end of the episode, Alan mentioned an article from Mark Baard which he said he’d read when it was first published in May of 2007, Prepare to be "transitioned" into your new "habitat". Mark Baard wrote about Paul D. Raskin, director of the Boston-based Tellus Institute. Baard writing about Raskin: “One of the backers of smart growth plans for major cities envisions a global “Great Transition” of humans into concentrated population centers.”
The Tellus Institute along with the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) convened the Global Scenario Group (GSG) in 1995. Dig into this and you will see heavily funded initiatives with money coming from sources including pre-divorce behemoth, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, (one of the victims of the Covid era whose demise we can celebrate.) The work of GSG is now carried out by the Great Transition Initiative (GTI).
The term ‘the great transition’ was coined by Kenneth E. Boulding in his 1964 book, The Meaning of the 20th Century – The Great Transition. Kenneth was a Quaker married to another Quaker, Norwegian sociologist and peace activist Elise M. Boulding. Elise chaired the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) based in Geneva, Switzerland, and worked with the United Nations through UNESCO and the University of the United Nations.
I observe that many sincere and well-meaning people involve themselves in building Utopia.
In his book, Boulding describes a shift from a pre-modern to a post-modern world, and possible courses of action that humanity can take that will make this a smooth transition.
Greattransition.org still maintains a website but it doesn’t appear to be a hotbed of current activity. Past articles include “Journey to Earthland: The Great Transition to Planetary Civilization” by Paul Raskin. “Economics for a Full World”. I did not read that one, but I imagine it could go something like this: Less of You People = More Resources for Us Better Types. Other articles include “Marxism and Ecology: Common Fonts of a Great Transition” and “Climate: The Crisis and the Movement” by Naomi Klein.
For every well-funded do-good organization that goes dormant, another hundred spring up. A few places to start your search include the World Economic Forum’s annual Sustainable Development Impact Meetings and the Aspen Institute’s annual climate meetings.
© Not Sure
Additional reading:
Our Common Future
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/5987our-common-future.pdf
WEF Sustainable Development Impact Meetings 2025
https://www.weforum.org/meetings/sustainable-development-impact-meetings-2025/
Aspen Ideas – Climate 2025
https://www.aspenideas.org/collections/highlights-from-aspen-ideas-climate-2025
The Great Transition
https://www.greattransition.org/
"Prepare to be 'transitioned' into your new 'habitat" " - by Mark Baard