A Credible and Responsible Green Party, Part #2

The Essential Principles

Some time ago, we argued that the responsibilities of taking care of our environment were far too important to be left to the representations and remonstrations of the New Zealand Green Party. That Party lacks credibility.

A respondent laid down a challenge: what would a more responsible green party stand for? It is a fair and provocative challenge. Having given the matter some thought, we would like to lay down our beliefs of what a responsible and serious green party would represent. The easiest way to do this is via negativa—that is, to stipulate what we believe a credible green party would not stand for. Here is Part #2 of the Essential Principles of a Responsible Green Party

6. A credible green movement would not tolerate a cult of apocalyptic catastrophism with respect to the future of the world.

The greenist movements have caused a great deal of suffering and harm, both to humans and to the wider environment, through alarmist calls based on the spectre of world apocalyptic catastrophism. All is going to end. The world as we know it is under threat. We are about to become extinct. These are the siren songs of greenism.

So much damage has resulted. Consider for example, the significant harm that has resulted from the banning of DDT—an early victory of the greenist movement, due largely to Rachel Carson's apocalyptic siren cry in Silent Spring—which has resulted in untold suffering and death. It now turns out that the dangers of DDT were far overstated; once again, better research and more disciplined use of technology would have served the world far better.

We have spoken repeatedly about the cult of global warming, with its attendant apocalyptic catastrophism, which has produced the mania for biofuels—which (in hindsight, regrettably) has been now identified as a crime against humanity.

A credible green movement would eschew all such alarmist and irresponsible scaremongering.

7. A credible green movement would not support nor defend the omni-competence of governments.

Governments usually do more harm than good. The intrusion of government into solving issues usually results in enormously bad and unintended consequences. Biofuels have turned into a crime against humanity, and are destroying millions of souls.

Most greenist movements have sought to achieve their goals and policy programmes through the compulsion of state rules and laws, accessing public taxation revenues.

A responsible green movement would be deeply sceptical of the efficacy of politics and of governments to conserve the environment. It would recognise that more often than not, government action has done far more harm than good, that it has a long track record of environmental and human destruction.

8. A credible green movement would not override private property rights, and would reject all forms of utilitarian ethics.

One of the most sickening aspects of modern greenism is its constant denial of private property rights, and its perpetual assertion of the rights of “corporate” or “abstract” man over individual persons (whether natural or legal). It is the belief that one should be prepared to do evil to individuals in order that good may come to the whole.

Thus, Indians in Brazil are to be prevented from cutting down their rain forests to make way for economic development (plantations, food, crops, and energy) for the greater good of humanity. Greenists quietly choose to forget that once forested Europe, Great Britain and New Zealand only began to sustain development out of poverty and degradation when the forests were cut down. Wood for energy was an important and critical part of economic development. Now, within the walls of relative luxury, the greenists lecture and hector poorer, Third World countries about what they can and cannot do.

Responsible and credible green movements would acknowledge the rights of private persons in every country of the world to develop themselves. Where genuine (and we stress, genuine) environmental degradation occurs as a result, responsible green parties would help explore appropriate methods of stewardship, of balance, of ecological compensation.

9. A credible green movement would not deny the central importance of “trade-offs”.

Nothing in this world is without cost. Nothing in this world is without price. Everything which is done has a cost (actual cost, or in terms of other opportunities forgone). Greenism denies the central importance of trade-offs—or, more to the point, it has its own set of trade-offs which it insists that everyone else must adopt.

For example, consider a situation in which people would either freeze to death or live in miserable circumstances, or a dam could be constructed which would provide hydro-electric power to heat and preserve people, but which would result in the extinction of a rare snail. Responsible green movements would recognise and live with those kinds of trade offs all the time. They would also be very clear in their set of ethical priorities. If there were no other way, the snails would have to be sacrificed for humans.

Responsible green movements would recognise that for every green initiative there is a cost. While they may try to persuade people that the cost was worth paying, they would not minimize or obscure the costs.

10. A credible green movement would not deny the critical importance of the principle of division of labour.

Many greenist organisations end up advocating a kind of naïve self-sufficiency. One gets the idea that in the end they would prefer that people should grow their own food, milk their own cows, bake their own bread, dispose of their own waste and generally revert to micro subsistence. They are determined to be blind toward the human degradation and poverty that results from such naïve ideas, as well as the environmental destruction that occurs when subsistence living is practised on a widespread scale.

A corollary is that many greenists are resolutely opposed to “big business” by which they mean large commercial operations, specialising in mass production of food or anything else. Such corporations are wasteful and environmentally destructive, they tell us.

However, responsible and credible green organisations would not deny, but would advocate the principle of division of labour, of specialisation, and of mass production as ultimately far less environmentally destructive than aurtarkic self-sufficiency. They would acknowledge that a whole world of self-sufficient human beings is not only impossible to achieve, but would actually be hugely wasteful of the earth's resources and enormously destructive of the environment.

If a green party were to be constituted which adopted the above ten principles, it would be likely quickly to gain significant credibility with the population at large. When it advocated action on a particular problem it would be likely to be listened to far more seriously. For one, it would not be constantly crying, Wolf! Wolf! That alone would increase credibility enormously.