Green politics is a political ideology that aims for the creation of an ecologically sustainable society rooted in environmentalism, social liberalism, and grassroots democracy. It began taking shape in the western world in the 1970s; since then Green parties have developed and established themselves in many countries across the globe, and have achieved some electoral success.
The political term Green, a translation of the German Grün, was coined by die Grünen, a Green party formed in the late 1970s. The term political ecology is sometimes used in Europe and in academic circles, but in the latter has come to represent an interdisciplinary field of study.
Supporters of Green politics, called Greens, share many ideas with the ecology, conservation, environmentalism, feminism, and peace movements. In addition to democracy and ecological issues, green politics is concerned with civil liberties, social justice, nonviolence and tends to support social progressivism. The party's platform is largely considered left in the political spectrum. However, as the 'Green' ideology expanded, there also came into separate existence green movements on the political right in the form of green conservatism and eco-capitalism.
The Green ideology has connections with various other ecocentric political ideologies, including ecosocialism, ecoanarchism, ecofeminism and ecofascism, but to what extent these can be seen as forms of Green politics is a matter of debate.
Read more about Green Politics: Core Tenets, Currents
Famous quotes containing the words green and/or politics:
“‘Oh beat the drum slowly and play the fife lowly,
Play the Dead March as you carry me along;
Take me to the green valley, there lay the sod o’er me,
For I’m a young cowboy and I know I’ve done wrong.”
—Unknown. As I Walked Out in the Streets of Laredo (l. 5–8)
“The so-called consumer society and the politics of corporate capitalism have created a second nature of man which ties him libidinally and aggressively to the commodity form. The need for possessing, consuming, handling and constantly renewing the gadgets, devices, instruments, engines, offered to and imposed upon the people, for using these wares even at the danger of one’s own destruction, has become a “biological” need.”
—Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979)