Green Movement

Introduction

The green movement is a diverse scientific, social, conservation, and political movement that broadly addresses the concerns of environmentalism. It encompasses an array of political parties, organizations, and individual advocates operating on international, national, and local levels. Unified only by a desire to protect the environment, but otherwise diverse in philosophy and strategy, the various factions of the green movement have succeeded in heightening public awareness of environmental issues.

Historical Background and Scientific Foundations

The modern green movement emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. Its growth reflected popular and scientific concerns about local and global degradation of the physical environment. However, history is dotted with incidents of environmental protest. Moreover, conservational groups have long campaigned to preserve natural environments and wild species. In Europe, organizations such as Friends of Nature and the National Trust date back to the nineteenth century, while the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) was founded in 1963.

The relative newness of a broad green movement can be seen by examining citations under “environment” listed in The New York Times index. In 1955, the word is not indexed; the newspaper did not discuss environmental issues. In 1960, there is a single citation; by 1965 there are two. By 1970, the year of the first Earth Day and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), there are 86 citations for the environmental movement. In 1990, there were 172; by 2001, the year President George W. Bush withdrew final U.S. support for the Kyoto Protocol, there were more than 3,000. The increased media coverage of environmental issues indicates a growing public concern for the environment and a blossoming green movement.

Although numerous conservation societies predated the 1960s, it was the ensuing decade-and-a-half that saw the birth of hundreds of grassroots green organizations and ultimately large-scale national and international groups such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. Localized concerns—nuclear power, toxic waste, acid rain, road building—found an expression in the era's increased political activism. Works such as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962) and Barry Commoner's Science and Survival (1965), which found popular audiences, heightened the educational efforts of conservationists and raised awareness of human-made degradation of the natural environment.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, mass environmental advocacy organizations, such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, started to emerge. Greenpeace was initially an extension of the hippy movement, first emerging in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, in 1969 as the Don't Make a Wave Committee of activists opposed to U.S. underground nuclear testing in Amchitka, Alaska. The committee's motivations were a mix of environmental concerns about the fate of the island and its wildlife and a philosophical opposition to nuclear weapons. A mission to disrupt a nuclear test failed but excited huge interest, eventually leading the United States to end nuclear testing on the island. In 1971, the committee was renamed Green-peace. Daring stunts to prevent French nuclear testing in the Pacific Ocean, including mooring a vessel within the testing exclusion area, brought Greenpeace global fame when they resulted in French abandonment of atmospheric testing.

David McTaggart, a Canadian businessman who led the Pacific seaborne protests, utilized this publicity and his business acumen to transform the Vancouver outfit into a global organization. McTaggart formed Greenpeace in Europe, finding like-minded souls to set up national organizations. This array of national associations was unified in 1979 as Greenpeace International.

Greenpeace's second great cause, from the mid– 1970s, was Save the Whale, a campaign that captured the global imagination. In a series of spectacular protests, Greenpeace activists would chase whaling fleets and interpose themselves between the harpoon of a catcher ship and a fleeing whale. As with the protests against French nuclear testing, film and photographic footage was widely circulated, prompting huge numbers to join its membership rolls. Green causes began to permeate mainstream politics in the 1980s, when Greenpeace and other groups brought issues such as species extinction, the destruction of the Amazonian rainforests, and climate change to the global agenda. Worldwide support for Greenpeace (defined as people who donated money) peaked in 1991 at 4.8 million, but has since fallen by up to half.

In the United Kingdom, Friends of the Earth was formed in 1971, initially to protest against a lemonade manufacturer's use of non-recyclable bottles. Like Greenpeace, its protests captured popular imagination, enabling it to expand its interests to such issues as road building, whaling, and climate change. Friends of the Earth now claims to be the largest international network of environmental groups in the world, covering more than 54 countries worldwide. Many other international environmental groups—such as the Environmental Investigation Agency—have also emerged from local origins to assume international reputations.

Others, such as the World Watch Institute, originate from environmentally conscious philanthropists; or, like, Conservation International, as non-governmental organizations that obtain funding from a mixture of private and public sources.

Operating beneath these large organizations are tens of thousands of protest and campaign groups operating on a regional, national, or localized basis. Over the past two decades, support for green causes has greatly shifted to these grassroots groups who espouse a range of local environmental causes from opposition to highway building to water pollution. Moreover, operation on a smaller scale has allowed nascent environmental groups to prosper in places like China, where larger organizations would usually fall foul of state controls.

In the early twenty-first century, the green movement has evolved in different ways. The decline in support experienced by larger environmentalist organizations has been accompanied by the rise of so-called envirocelebrities, such as former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and rock stars such as Bono and Sting. These individuals have used their public prominence to raise awareness of climate change and related environmental issues. Gore, who jointly won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in promoting the understanding of climate change, produced an Oscar-winning film about climate change—An Inconvenient Truth—and helped organize the Live Earth concerts in 2007.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, the growth in mainstream green organizations precipitated the rise in ecoconscious political parties. Britain had the Ecology Party from the mid–1970s. Former West Germany was among the first countries to have its Green Party—Die Grünen— around 1980. Some 60 national Green Parties have been formed since then, most in developed countries, but also in nations such as Saudi Arabia (where it has been forced underground) and Somalia. Though all national Green Parties have unique policies and agendas, they are unified by a commitment to environmentalism, grassroots advocacy, nonviolence, and social justice.

Impacts and Issues

Previous favorite causes, such as whaling and nuclear testing, seem insignificant in comparison, yet groups like Greenpeace and national Green Parties have failed to influence governments to reach agreement on the radical action necessary to counteract global warming. As a consequence, membership has ebbed, while being further eroded by mainstream political parties, which have increasingly adopted green agendas as part of their electoral strategies. Although membership in large environmental protest groups has declined, green issues have become more visible in the media. More people describe themselves as an “environmentalist” today than ever before, but most engage environmental issues through personal action like recycling at home, carpooling, or eschewing the use of plastic grocery bags. More U.S. voters than ever before rank global climate change and environmental regulation as key issues.

It is now normal for mainstream political parties to adopt green issues into their political platforms. For example, Britain's Conservative Party, traditionally considered anti-regulation, now extols environmentalism as one of the central tenets of its political platform. However, governments and environmental protest groups have sometimes been at extreme odds. In 1985, as Greenpeace prepared another flotilla to try and avert French nuclear testing at Moruroa atoll, French special forces, acting under the direct orders of President François Mitterand, attached two bombs to the hull of the Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior. When the two bombs detonated they sank the ship, killing a Portuguese photographer. The bombing of the Rainbow Warrior caused international outrage, and the French government went on to pay the New Zealand government considerable compensation, as well as offering a formal apology.

Elsewhere, environmental groups have suffered direct state repression. In Saudi Arabia, the local chapter of Greenpeace has been forced underground. In China, where such groups are generally tolerated, state crack-downs on green protests and demonstrations are not uncommon, particularly in its more outlying provinces. Nevertheless, a minority of political analysts have expressed optimism in the growth of the green movement in spite of repressive regimes.

Sections of the green movement are also considered extremist by many governments and law enforcement agencies. Eco-terrorist organizations have splintered from the peaceable, mainstream Green Movement and turned to direct action campaigns that employ vandalism, property destruction, violence, and life-endangering sabotage. Some of these extremist branches of the environmental movement formed after becoming frustrated by a lack of radicalization within the Green Movement. Examples of these include Earth First!, which was founded by disaffected mainstream environmentalists in 1979 and boasted at least 10,000 members worldwide by the late 1980s. Although Earth First! has always publicly disavowed violence, its members have been linked to sabotage at ski resorts and nuclear power plants, including a plot to simultaneously attack power transmission lines in Arizona, California, and Colorado. In general, mainstream members of the Green Movement support several of the same environmental causes as the movement's extreme fringe, but condemn the use of violence and vandalism as means of protest.

WORDS TO KNOW

EARTH LIBERATION FRONT (ELF): An underground group in North America that describes itself as “an international underground organization that uses direct action in the form of economic sabotage to stop the destruction of the natural environment.” The group claims to have destroyed $100 million worth of property. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation declared it the number one domestic terror threat as of March 2001.

FACTION: A dissenting group within a larger group such as a political party. A faction is usually outnumbered by other members of the larger group.

GREEN PARTY: Any of a number of political parties in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere, whose policies are centered on environmentalism, participatory democracy, and social justice. About 70 countries have Green Parties: in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, a number of Greens have been elected to Parliament. The German Green Party is particularly powerful.

GREENPEACE: Nonprofit environmental group formed in 1971, originally to protest nuclear testing and whaling. The group remains active, now addressing a wide range of issues, including climate change.

NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY ACT (NEPA): U.S. federal law signed by President Richard Nixon on January 1, 1970. The act requires federal agencies to produce Environmental Impact Statements describing the impact on the environment of projects they propose to carry out.

More radical still is the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). Formed in Great Britain in 1992, and also active in Canada and the United States, it is modeled after its sister organization, the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and is a loose-knit amalgam of cells, with no centralized leadership. It is bound together only by a common set of core guidelines, as published on the ELF Web site:

• To inflict economic damage on those profiting from the destruction and exploitation of the natural environment.
• To reveal and educate the public on the atrocities committed against the earth and all species that populate it.
• To take necessary precautions against harming any animal, human and non-human.

ELF engages in sabotage against companies involved in logging, energy production, and construction and is described by the FBI as “one of the most active extremist elements in the United States.” ELF members are accused of over $100 million in property damage since 1997. An overwhelming majority of environmentalists reject the methods employed by fringe groups like ELF. Most use the media to distribute information and raise awareness, to work within the confines of the political process, or to employ tactics of peaceful protest and civil disobedience.

Although environmental issues have entered into mainstream politics in many areas, the electoral and legislative success of dedicated Green Parties has been mixed. In some countries, they are important elements in the political landscape, partaking in coalition governments and exacting a huge influence upon their country's politics. In Germany, which has one of the oldest and the most influential Green Party in the world, members have participated in several coalition governments and been responsible for huge policy shifts, such as the phasing out of nuclear power stations. In other large countries, such as Britain and France, Green Parties are on the peripheries of mainstream politics, rarely gaining more than a couple percent of votes in national elections. Britain has never had a Green Party member of parliament (MP), although its public has elected a number of local councilors since the party's formation in 1985. The addition of a Green Party candidate to the ballot made a significant impact on the outcome of the 2000 U.S. presidential election.

See Also Environmental Policy; Environmental Protests; Sustainability.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Burchell, Jon. The Evolution of Green Politics: Development and Change within European Green Parties. London: Earthscan, 2002.

Dryzek, John S., et al. Green States and Social Movements: Environmentalism in the U.S., U.K., Germany and Norway. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003

Liddick, Donald R. Eco Terrorism: Radical Environmental and Animal Liberation Movements. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006.

Rootes, Christopher, ed. Environmental Protest in Western Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003

Rubin, Charles T. The Green Movement: Rethinking the Roots of Environmentalism. New York: Free Press, 1994.

James Corbett