To Save the Planet

This is my editorial from Green World, the Green Party magazine. See what you think.

They seem to have edited out the bit about not flying around the world telling people not to fly!

Space I guess.



To save the planet we need to think globally and act globally, recognising that when we win elections, take direct action and change minds at a local level we are part of a planetary movement.

We all need to be getting on the doorstep and electioneering, please help out your local parties’ campaigning for the upcoming elections or take a trip to help a party elsewhere. You will be most welcome and rewarded with the hospitality for which Greens are famous. Electioneering has an international dimension too. This year New Zealand and the US voters living in the UK can vote for Green Party candidates and we can support their campaigning.

And it doesn’t stop on the doorstep. Take a look at Ecological Internet, www.ecoearth.info, it provides action alerts and saves habitats. I learnt from it that virtually the whole of Woodlark Island in Papua New Guinea was going to be logged for palm oil, such rainforest destruction makes climate change worse, throws local people into poverty and kills rare species. By getting in touch with Jennifer Baing, a Papuan green activist, I managed to embarrass the PNG government with an article in that famous left wing paper the Daily Telegraph. Due to Ecological Internet the PNG government performed a swift u-turn, saving the Island from logging.

In Latin America a huge green movement is growing, simply because ordinary people at the grassroots know that ecological politics is vital for survival. In Cuba there has been a huge push for organic agriculture and energy saving, in Ecuador the President is talking of a moritorium on oil production, Bolivian President Morales made a stunning speech to the UN last year on the need to embrace ecology.

These governments get a lot right and some things wrong but what is most impressive is the grassroots struggle of local greens across the globe. In the huge high growth economies like India and China, there are 100,000s of people from peasants resisting land seizures to trade unionist fighting pollution who are part of our inspirational movement. They are often just a click away.