What is a Green Party?
- Image by Grant Neufeld via Flickr
Almost everyone has heard this term, Green Party. Yet not a lot of people really know what it means. Basically, a Green Party is a political party that is organized formally and is based on the main principles of green politics. So what is green politics? Well, it is plainly a political ideology that gives high priority on environmental goals such as grassroots policy and also participatory democracy. There are a lot of people that are now supporting the Green Party movement because of the fact there is a growing awareness on the protection of the environment and also alleviating the effects of global warming. It has been around for so many years however, the past ten years or so, there has been increased number of followers of this type of party.
Green parties normally call for some sort of social reform in order to decrease the amount of abuse of all our natural resources. They are advocates of sustainable energy which calls for less reliance on oil which is not a renewable source of energy. Some of them have already made bills pass in the legislative bodies of their country in order to development sustainable energy resources. Green parties also focus on the health of the environment and also, of course, the human being. This is very important especially in today’s day and age because almost all our natural resources are being depleted because of capital gains and also because of basic human greed.
Green parties support non-violence. That is why a lot of them opposed the war of terrorism which was mainly supported by other parties. Because they adhere to the spirit of nonviolence, most green parties feel that the war on terrorism somehow curtailed the civil rights of people. In the United States, a country where there is a huge amount of support for the war on terrorism, green parties are now calling for an end to it. Although, a lot of people feel that they are taking it to a very extreme level, there is still a growing amount of people that support green parties.
Green Parties in the USA
- Image via Wikipedia
In the United States there is an association that was created called The Green Party of the United States whose goals are similar to that of other green parties in the world. This particular party was created around ten years ago. Prior to the formation of the National Green Party, there were a lot of state affiliates and they were being recognized only state wide. The Association of State Green Parties became very popular when Ralf Nader ran for president in the 1996 and the 2008 elections, but unfortunately lost the elections.
The basic ideologies of the Green Party of the United States is diversity, peace, non-violence, and environmentalism. The good thing about this is that there is someone actually fighting for the betterment of the environment that people live in today. They are also advocates of sustainable energy, which is the creation of energy from renewable energy such as solar power, wind, and geothermal electricity. They are highly opposed to nuclear energy because it still has waste and radioactive waste is very difficult to get rid of.
Green parties today are gaining much more influence because more people are now supporting it. With the increased awareness of the current situation, more people are now following the principles of green parties. There are a lot of big companies that are now trying to become greener by creating products that can be recycled or reused and also by becoming much more efficient in their use of natural resources such as oil. Green parties however, do not like to get donations from big corporate companies because they feel that they will have to follow the business when creating their policies and also the things that they are fighting for. There are a lot people that are now trying to fight for the environment. Also, there are many influential people that are trying to recruit others to actually join the green movement. Supporters of green parties vary from different races, social backgrounds, nationalities and religion. Of course, you cannot discount the fact that there are many people that are oppose the Green Party.
