The Green movement centres its politics around sustainability, eco-anarchism, direct democracy, feminism, pacifism, and liberalism. It has taken off globally, on all continents, and collectively revolves around creating socio-economic solutions to close the Man-Nature gap.
History: Philosophers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Henry David Thoreau were some of the first advocates, as well as European Enlightenment and pre-Romantic period responses to the Industrial Revolution. The United Tasmania Group and the Values Party of New Zealand were the first organised coalitions, emerging from environmental threats such as hydroelectric dam projects, nuclear warfare, and rapid industrialisation.
Facts:
- The 4 Pillars of Green Politics are grassroots democracy, social justice, ecological wisdom, and nonviolence.
- The UK Ecology Party was the first green party in Europe.
- The US Green Party derives its founding principles from the Iroquois Confederacy: a collection of 6 American Indian nations in NE America.
- 30,000 people attended the UNCED event in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, making it one of the most extensive programmes for a green and global framework.
- People such as Aldous Huxley, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Thom Yorke, and Jeremy Irons have contributed or supported the Green movement.
Achievements:
- In the 1970s, the German ‘Die Grünen’ party won 28 new seats in the Bundestag, noting the first major win in parliamentary elections.
- They also created the “Four Pillars of the Green Party” platform; the first binding philosophy of all Green parties.
- Vienna, Austria created the first “car free” housing project in Brigittenau, where 244 homes replaced car parks with common spaces for shops, parks, and other facilities.
- Frankfurt am Main has created a Passive Houses project aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 50% until 2030. These houses use very little energy, passive lighting and heating, and other scientific initiatives from the BELIEF project.
