THE GREEN PARTY IS A TOTAL SHAMBLES

i) The Global Context.

There are now green parties in many countries around the world. They all formulate policies with little reference to the policies advocated by green parties in other countries. Despite the fact that greens around the world commend themselves for their holistic approach they continue to draw up policies to green their own tiny part of the Planet in virtual isolation from the rest of the world.[1] They do not have a holistic theory to unify the policies of green parties around the world. They do not have a holistic theory to ensure that global policies would keep within the Earth’s geophysiological limitations. They have no policies which would lead to the creation of a sustainable Planet. The green party believes it can set up an ecologically sound country in the midst of a global ecological collapse.

ii) The National Context.

The green party’s manifesto for a sustainable society (mfss) has expanded over the years as old policies have been rewritten and updated, and new policies inserted. Policy development has depended on a whole range of factors - the enthusiasm of the individuals initiating new policies, the number of people consulted through the policy community, the number of people who could afford to attend working group meetings or get to a green party conference, or who happened to be the most persuasive speaker at conference. The last thing policy changes have depended on, however, is an understanding of the Earth’s life-sustaining processes.[2] Its policies have been formulated in an almost entirely haphazard manner without geophysiological rhyme or reason almost as if the Earth does not exist. The green party has no holistic theory to assess the geophysiological viability of its policy proposals.

The Green party hasn’t outlined the nature of a sustainable Planet. It has not specified the structure, functions and purposes of the institutions needed to protect the Earth’s life support system and its Biodiversity. It does not know whether the basis of a sustainable Planet is solar power, alternative energy, biomass, bacterial energy, or Phytomass. While there are lots of lovely, nice sounding, green concepts in the mfss - ‘living in harmony with nature’, ‘sustainability’, ‘renewability’, ‘biodegradability’ etc., there isn’t much meaning behind them. How is it possible for the green party save the Planet when it doesn’t even know what a sustainable Planet is?[3]

Even worse is that greens say they want to protect the Earth and yet they still advocate a wide range of policies which would inflict colossal levels of ecological destruction.[4] The Green party blithely sanctions ecological destruction as if it is permissible to destroy any part of the Earth as long as its done for good ‘green’ reasons, as if only the green party knows how to destroy the Earth whilst protecting it.[5] If these excuses for greens’ ecological destruction sound like the greenspeak of multinational corporations who now build green cars, and of governments which construct environmentally friendly roads, then this is exactly what it is. If a Green government implemented the green party’s (often contradictory) policies it would cause a massive level of ecological destruction. The Green party’s transport policies in ‘Roads to the Future’ have been formulated in terms of the ipcc’s recommendation for 60-80% reductions in Carbon emissions in order to combat global warming and yet these policies promote large scale ecological devastation WHOSE IMPACT ON GLOBAL WARMING HAS BEEN TOTALLY IGNORED BUT WHICH WOULD EXACERBATE GLOBAL WARMING. Sandy irvine is quite correct, “Taking the world as a whole, the point of overdevelopment has long been surpassed. Yet most people, including many ‘greens’ are prepared to sacrifice more environments .. by consenting to a bit more development - one more motorway, one more housing estate, one more hotel, one more factory, one more plantation, one more quarry.”[6]

The green party’s current ignorance about the Earth’s physiology, and the scale of the ecological collapse which is taking place around the Earth, would not be of much concern if there was a widespread acceptance within the party of the need to overcome such deficiencies but there seems to be little interest in green issues. What exacerbates the situation is that for the last three years the Green party has been imploding because of disputes between protagonists whose only common point of reference seems to be their determination to ignore the Planet’s ecology and the damage inflicted upon it. The decentralists (eco-socialists, social ecologists, green anarchists, etc.) regard green issues merely as a means of promoting social interests - one member of this faction has even gone so far as to suggest that because the public aren’t interested in the environment then the party should drop green issues altogether and concentrate on those issues which voters are interested in.[7]

Green 2000, or its latest manifestation, green realignment, seems to be much more concerned with ecology since it criticizes the green party for drifting away from ecological issues - indeed one green realignment supporter has gone so far as to suggest it should drop all social issues. However, whilst green realignment may be more oriented toward ecology than the decentralists, its electoral, mainstream, reformist outlook makes it almost impossible for its members to talk about the causes of ecological devastation. Realigned greens will not talk about the ecological destruction caused by capitalism, the car, and car related, industries or the Animal exploitation industry. Many are petrified about campaigns to promote the interests of Animals for fear of being labelled Animal rights terrorists; they see nothing morally wrong with eating meat; they look upon Animal exploiters as potential new members; and they refuse to acknowledge that the Animal exploitation industry is the biggest cause of ecological destruction. Representing the more middle class wing of the green party, they often drive around in cars made from Amazonian iron ore/aluminium in order to attend meetings where they virtuously demand something is done to stop Rainforest destruction. Their timidity in discussing ecological issues is frightening.

As regards ecological destruction, one side blames over-population and ignores capitalism whilst the other blames capitalism and ignores over-population. Whilst capitalism and over-consumption are currently vastly more ecologically destructive than over-population, the exponential growth in human numbers has nearly reached the start of its final doubling which will culminate in the devastation of the Earth’s life-sustaining processes. There is no doubt that in the next few decades it will overtake the destruction wreaked by capitalism. What is so annoying about the protagonists in these disputes is that they seem to prefer slagging each other off rather than attempting to work out a common methodology by which their respective claims could be measured. They have no common language by which they could reconcile their differences.

Another manifestation of the green party’s haphazard policy development is that its global warming policies have just been tacked onto the mfss without any change in its other policies. As a consequence, the party’s policies are not in the least bit integrated with its policies on global warming. It seems to believe that the policies it recommends to combat this ecological disaster have no implications for its other policies.

In the 1980s, conservative governments in both Britain and America pushed through what was called a supply side revolution ending the dominance of demand-side economics. After the end of the second world war politicians followed keynesian ideas about the role of governments in stimulating demand to maintain economic growth. This led governments to engage in spending sprees without worrying about where the money was coming from and who was going to pay for it. Eventually even the callaghan government realized that never-ending demand stimulation was causing economic problems and introduced cash limits - the first step in the direction of monetarism. The 1979 thatcher government sought to end demand-side irresponsibility by concentrating upon supply side economics - increased labour productivity through trade union reforms; increased industrial efficiency through deregulation and less bureaucracy; increased competition through privatization and the phasing out of subsidies to industry; fiscal reforms to give consumers more spending power, etc..

However, demand side madness rapidly gave way to supply side madness. Supply side reforms overcame the stop-go problems of the 1960s and 1970s only to replace them with the even bigger oscillations of boom and bust. The nearest that tory governments came to an economic miracle was the economic mirage produced by North Sea oil.

In many ways greens have yoked themselves to their own version of supply side madness. When considering the dangers posed by global warming they concentrate almost entirely on Carbon emissions (the greenhouse effect or the supply side of the Carbon cycle) and totally ignore, like ‘Roads to the Future’, the destruction of the Planet’s Photosynthetic capacity (the demand side of the Carbon cycle). Whilst greens make endless noises about reducing atmospheric pollution the world’s remaining Forests are being clear-cut and this can lead only to a global ecological calamity. Greens are not merely ignorant about ecological issues they are becoming increasingly dangerous because the fuss they are creating over atmospheric pollution is not merely diverting attention away from global ecological devastation, it is blinding them to the damage they themselves are promising to inflict on the Earth if they ever get into power.

The green party’s manifesto is irrelevant because its policies are not rooted in an understanding of the Planet’s life support system. It is time to develop a manifesto for a sustainable Planet in which policies are derived from basic geophysiological realities and thus take into account the needs and interests of the Earth. It is imperative that green policies are harmonized not merely with each other at the local, national and global, levels but with the needs of the Earth.

The green party does not have a geophysiological analysis to provide an accurate understanding of:-

* which policies should be given the highest priority;

* the rapidity with which these policies must be implemented to prevent an ecological breakdown; 

* which industries need to be reformed, or abolished, in order to prevent a global ecological collapse.

(The reason for this is because the green party is not interested in green issues).

The green party gives priority to reducing Carbon emissions in order to combat global warming. It does not give priority to Reforestation.

The green party does not support the creation of a Wood based economy even though it is the only basis for a sustainable Planet.

The green party supports solar energy and the creation of solar economies even though this would increase ecological devastation.

The green party has not outlined the nature of a sustainable green Planet.

Even though for the last 21 years the green party has complained that governments and industries have not ecologically costed their policies, the same is also true of the green party. The green party does not ecologically cost its policies even though it is supposed to protect the environment!!

Because the green party does not ecologically cost its policies it invariably ends up promoting ecologically damaging policies.

The green party has added new policies to its manifesto without any regard to its old policies e.g. when it adopted global warming policies it did not change any of its other policies in its manifesto. As a consequence, even though the green party is committed to reducing Carbon emissions by 80%, if it implemented its policies in the manifesto it would probably boost Carbon emissions rather than reducing them. It would certainly never reach its global warming target.

When the green party formulates policies it does so in complete isolation from, and indifference to, the rest of the world. As a consequence it has no means for harmonizing its policies with those of the rest of the world to protect the Earth’s life support system.

The green party has no understanding of the principle of global ecological equity. It promotes policies which would cause a level of ecological devastation in this country which would lead, if replicated in all other countries around the world, to a global ecological collapse.

The green party has no global policies and thus no means for protecting the Earth’s life support system nor for ensuring that the world keeps within geophysiological constraints.

The green party is concerned solely with promoting the needs, interests, welfare, and wealth of humans not the Earth. It is quite willing to impoverish the Earth in order to make more and more humans wealthy even though over the long term this will prove to be completely unsustainable.

The green party is indifferent to Animal rights:-

* It is opposed to racism, sexism, genderism, ageism, etc., but refuses to state its opposition to speciesism.

* It refuses to acknowledge that the Animal exploitation industry is the most ecologically destructive industry on Earth.

If the green party was serious about stopping ecological destruction it would focus its campaigns and propaganda on the most ecologically destructive activities especially the Animal exploitation industry. The green party does not campaign on Animal rights issues and never publicizes its Animal rights policies during election campaigns.

The green party will not:-

* tell the truth about the grim state of the Planet's ecology;

* promote long term policies to create a sustainable Planet;

* tell consumers how much they are going to have to change to lead a sustainable life;

* express any pessimism that if humans continue to act in their current manner then there is not the slightest doubt they will cause a global ecological collapse.

(The reason for this is that the green party is protecting the Earth-rapists).

The green party

refuses to measure ecological destruction

refuses to ecologically cost its policies

promotes ecologically damaging policies

and protects Earth rapists.