Green Politics
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- Main article: Green Politics
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Green politics or Green ideology is a political ideology which places a high importance on ecological and environmentalist goals, and on achieving these goals through broad-based, grassroots, participatory democracy and a consensus decision-making. Green politics is advocated by supporters of the Green movement, which has been active through Green parties in many nations since the late 1970s and early 1980s. The political term Green, a translation of the German Grün, was coined by die Grünen, the first successful Green party, in the 1970s.
"Greens" claim that their ideology represents a fundamentally new way of addressing societal and political problems, and that green politics is therefore not classifiable along the traditional left-right political spectrum. While green parties are often characterized as left-wing parties, this is not always the case. In fact, different currents within green politics can be described as variously left-wing or right-wing. In addition to ecological issues, green politics is concerned with issues of social justice, civil rights, and nonviolence.
Economics
Main article: Green economics Green economics focuses on the importance of the health of the biosphere to human well-being. Consequently, most Greens distrust conventional capitalism, as it tends to emphasize economic growth while ignoring ecological health; the "full cost" of economic growth often includes damage to the biosphere, which is unacceptable according to green politics. Green economics considers such growth to be "uneconomic growth"— material increase that nonetheless lowers overall quality of life.
Some Greens refer to productivism, consumerism and scientism as "grey," as contrasted with "green," economic views. "Grey" implies age, concrete, and lifelessness.
Therefore, adherents to green politics advocate economic policies designed to safeguard the environment. Greens want governments to stop subsidizing companies that waste resources or pollute the natural world, subsidies that Greens refer to as "dirty subsidies." Some currents of green politics place meat and dairy subsidies in this category, as they may harm human health. On the contrary, Greens look to a green tax shift that will encourage both producers and consumers to make ecologically friendly choices.
Green economics is on the whole anti-globalist. Economic globalization is considered a threat to well-being, which will replace natural environments and local cultures with a single trade economy, termed the global economic monoculture.
Since green economics emphasizes biospheric health, an issue outside the traditional left-right spectrum, different currents within green politics incorporate ideas from socialism and capitalism. Greens on the Left are often identified as Eco-socialists, who merge ecology and environmentalism with socialism and Marxism and blame the capitalist system for environmental degradation, social injustice, inequality and conflict. Eco-capitalists, on the other hand, believe that the free market system, with some modification, is capable of addressing ecological problems.
Participatory democracy
Since the beginning, green politics has emphasized local, grassroots-level political activity and decision-making. According to its adherents, it is crucial that citizens play a direct role in the decisions that influence their lives and their environment. Therefore, green politics seeks to increase the role of deliberative democracy, based on direct citizen involvement and consensus decision making, wherever it is feasible.
Green politics also encourages political action on the individual level, such as ethical consumerism, or buying things that are made according to environmentally ethical standards. Indeed, many green parties emphasize individual and grassroots action at the local and regional levels over electoral politics. Historically, green parties have grown at the local level, gradually gaining influence and spreading to regional or provincial politics, only entering the national arena when there is a strong network of local support.
In addition, many Greens believe that governments should not levy taxes against strictly local production and trade. Some Greens advocate new ways of organizing authority to increase local control, including urban secession and bioregional democracy.
Other issues
The sunflower is an internationally recognized symbol of Green politics.Green politics on the whole is opposed to nuclear power and the buildup of persistent organic pollutants, based on a strict adherence to the precautionary principle, by which technologies are rejected unless they can be proven to not cause significant harm to the health of living things or the biosphere. In Germany and Sweden programs have been initiated to shut down all nuclear plants (known as nuclear power phase-out).
In the spirit of nonviolence, Green politics opposes the War on Terrorism and the curtailment of civil rights, focusing instead on nurturing deliberative democracy in war-torn regions and the construction of a civil society with an increased role for women.
Greens are ambivalent about the War on Drugs in the United States and Europe. The USA GP's platform advocates something other than drug peace: a "firm approach" against the "trafficking in hard drugs", although it notes that drug crimes have "too much emphasis".
It is rare for a Green platform to propose lower fossil fuel prices, unlabelled genetically modified organisms, tax, trade and tariff liberalizations that remove protections for ecoregions or communities.
Critique of Green Policy
Critics sometimes claim that the universal and immersive nature of ecology, and the necessity of converting some of it to serve humanity, predisposes the movement towards authoritarian and intrusive policies, particularly with regard to the means of production, as these sustain human life. These critics often see Green programs as just a form of socialism or fascism — although many Greens counter that these are more characteristic of Gaians or non-parliamentary groups such as Green Anarchists, who are part of the Green Movement but less committed to democracy.[citation needed]
Skeptics point out that industrial nations are in the best position to adopt state-of-the-art clean energy and corresponding high pollution standards — and that Green Parties advocate going against economic progress. However, Greens respond that industrial nations are still those which use the most resources, and contribute most to climate change, and that as the poor world develops, we must help it develop with renewable rather than finite/carbon-based energy sources.
A further criticism is that Green parties are strongest among the well educated in the developed world, while many policies could be seen as operating against the interests of the poor both in rich countries and globally. For example, some Greens support increases in the indirect taxation of goods ("ecotax") which they perceive to be polluting. This can result in the less well off paying a higher share of the tax burden because more of their income goes to purchasing essentials. Green defenders of the Green Tax shift respond that the poor are often the first and greatest victims of environmental degradation and do not have the resources to adapt or move away. Protecting ecosystems therefore protects the poor even more than the rich who can better adapt or move. Furthermore, equity positive tax or refund adjustments can be made to the progressive income tax system to compensate for any socially regressive consequences of the green tax shift. Globally, Green opposition to heavy industry is seen by critics as acting against the interests of rapidly industrialising poor countries such as China or Thailand. A counter view is that emerging nations from the South would benefit environmentally and economically given the rising cost of fossil fuels by leap-frogging the industrial stage and moving directly to the post-industrial stage. Green participation in the anti-globalisation movement, and the leading role taken by Green parties in countries such as the United States in opposing free trade agreements, also leads critics to argue that Greens are against opening up rich country markets to goods from the developing world, although many Greens would argue that they are in favour of trade justice - Fair trade over Free Trade. Contrary to the above view, Greens in Europe advocate the lowering of trade barriers and argue for the elimination of export subsidies for agricultural products in the industralised nations.
Finally, critics argue that Greens have a Luddite view of technology, opposing technologies such as genetic modification which their critics see as positive. Greens have often taken the lead in raising concerns about public health issues such as obesity which critics see as a modern form of moral panic. Whereas a technophobic point of view can be found in the early Green movement and parties, Greens today reject the accusation of Luddism, countering that their policies of sustainable growth encourage 'clean' technological innovation like renewable energy and anti-pollution technology.
