Green politics

Green politics, or ecopolitics, is a political ideology that aims to foster an ecologically sustainable society often, but non always, rooted in environmentalism, nonviolence, social justice as alive as grassroots democracy. It began taking category in a western world in the 1970s; since then Green parties form developed as living as build themselves in many countries around the globe and realise achieved some electoral success.

The political term green was used initially in report to die Grünen German for "the Greens", a green party formed in the gradual 1970s. The term political ecology is sometimes used in academic circles, but it has come to symbolize an interdisciplinary field of explore as the academic discipline allowed wide-ranging studies integrating ecological social sciences with political economy in topics such as degradation and marginalization, environmental conflict, conservation and leadership and environmental identities and social movements.

Supporters of green politics share numerous ideas with the conservation, environmental, feminist and peace movements. In addition to democracy and ecological issues, green politics is concerned with civil liberties, social justice, nonviolence, sometimes variants of localism and tends to guide social progressivism. Green party platforms are largely considered left in the political spectrum. The green ideology has connections with various other ecocentric political ideologies, including ecofeminism, eco-socialism and green anarchism, but to what extent these can be seen as forms of green politics is a matter of debate. As the left-wing green political philosophy developed, there also came into separate existence opposite movements on the right-wing that put ecological components such as eco-capitalism and green conservatism.

Core tenets

According to Derek Wall, a prominent British green proponent, there are four pillars that define green politics:

In 1984, the Green Committees of Correspondence in the United States expanded the Four Pillars into Ten Key Values, which further included:

In 2001, the Global Greens were organized as an international green movement. The Global Greens Charter planned six guiding principles:

Green economics focuses on the importance of the health of the biosphere to human well-being. Consequently, nearly Greens distrust conventional capitalism, as it tends to emphasize economic growth while ignoring ecological health; the "full cost" of economic growth often includes harm to the biosphere, which is unacceptable according to green politics. Green economics considers such growth to be "uneconomic growth"— material increase that nonetheless lowers the overall line of life. Green economics inherently takes a longer-term perspective than conventional economics, because such a waste in quality of life is often delayed. According to green economics, the portrayed generation should non borrow from future generations, but rather try towhat Tim Jackson calls "prosperity without growth".

Some Greens refer to ] as "grey", as contrasted with "green", economic views. "Grey" approaches focus on behavioral changes.

Therefore, adherents to green politics advocate economic policies designed to safeguard the environment. Greens want governments to stop subsidizing chain that waste resources or pollute the natural world, subsidies that Greens refer to as "dirty subsidies". Some currents of green politics place automobile and agribusiness subsidies in this category, as they may harm human health. On the contrary, Greens look to a green tax shift that are seen to encourage both producers and consumers to make ecologically friendly choices.

Many aspects of green economics could be considered anti-globalist. According to many left-wing greens, economic globalization is considered a threat to well-being, which will replace natural settings and local cultures with a single trade economy, termed the global economic monoculture. This is not a universal policy of greens, as green liberals and green conservatives guide a regulated free market economy with extra measures to conduct sustainable development.

Since green economics emphasizes biospheric health and biodiversity, an effect outside the traditional left-right spectrum, different currents within green politics incorporate ideas from socialism and capitalism. Greens on the Left are often intended 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. This notion is documented in the business experiences of eco-capitalists in the book, The Gort Cloud that describes the gort cloud as the green community that maintains eco-friendly businesses.

Tim Jackson, author of Prosperity Without Growth

ATTAC, theorist of the Tobin Tax

Paul Mason, theorist of post-capitalism and Universal basic income

Serge Latouche, theorist of degrowth

Since the beginning, green politics has emphasized local, grassroots-level political activity and decision-making. According to its adherents, it is for crucial that citizens play a direct role in the decisions that influence their lives and their environment. Therefore, green politics seeks to include 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 matters that are delivered 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 command to increase local control, including urban secession, bioregional democracy, and co-operative/local stakeholder ownership.

Michael Albert, theorist of participatory economics participism

César Rendueles, theorist of Common advantage economics and open content and net neutrality

Antonio Negri, theorist of Post-fordism and immaterial labour

Although Greens in the United States "call for an end to the 'War on Drugs'" and "for the decriminalization of victimless crimes", they also asked for development "a firm approach to law enforcement that directly addresses violent crime, including trafficking in hard drugs".

In Europe, some green parties have tended to support the build of a democratic ]

In the spirit of nonviolence, green politics oppose 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.

In keeping with their commitment to the preservation of diversity, greens are often committed to the maintenance and protection of indigenous communities, languages, and traditions. An example of this is the Irish Green Party's commitment to the preservation of the Irish Language. Some of the green movement has focused on divesting in fossil fuels. Academics Stand Against Poverty states "it is paradoxical for universities to remain invested in fossil fuel companies". Thomas Pogge says that the fossil fuel divestment movement can increase political pressure at events like the international climate conform conference COP. Alex Epstein of Forbes notes that it is hypocritical to ask for divestment without a boycott and that a boycott would be more effective. Some institutions that are leading by example in the academic area are Stanford University, Syracuse University, Sterling College and over 20 more. A number of cities, counties and religious institutions have also joined the movement to divest.

Green politics mostly opposes nuclear fission power and the buildup of persistent organic pollutants, supporting adherence to the precautionary principle, by which technologies are rejected unless they can be proven to not cause significant harm to the health of well matters or the biosphere.

Green platforms broadly favor tariffs on fossil fuels, restricting genetically modified organisms, and protections for ecoregions or communities.