The Green Movement – digging up dirt on the industrial lifestyle for 30 years …
The Green Movement started to flex it’s political muscles about 30 years ago here in Europe and became a serious power for change.
Alternative ideas have been around since the early 1960’s (like the Gaia hypothesis) and developed into a serious, but tiny political idea in the early 1970’s like the Club of Rome. 1968 saw worldwide student protests, but it took another ten years to transform these ideas and many splinter groups into a (more or less) coherent political movement called the Greens.
Strangely enough it was Germany, were the Green Movement had it’s first major impact – a country hardly known for revolutions and a big hunger for change.
The Green Party (Die Grünen) was the last big political Grassroots movement here in Germany (no, I don’t count the Re-Unification as such).
It was born out of a mixture of the strong peace movement (fuelled by the rage against stationing the Pershing II missiles in Germany), the 1968-Student-Protesters turned activists in the 1970’s and the new alternative green culture (who fought for example for years in huge battles against the Police to stop a new terminal for the airport in Frankfurt).
Damn Hippies … oh wait – these are real politicians and they actually achieved something.
Compared to traditional parties the Greens really cared about pollution, saving the planet and new global social ideas. They were the first to advance the ideas to protect nature as well as the consumers on the table and later into law.
The Greens were part of a bigger cultural change in Germany (and later worldwide) – that was quite different from the extreme Left (like the Baader-Meinhof-Group) and re-emerging Neo-Nazis from the right.
We are not the old mainstream – we are going to be the new green mainstream …
Even "normal" people saw the need to fight pollution and simply get better food for their families.
The 1970’s and 1980’s showed us that Science and it’s industrial application were far from perfect.
Scandals like Pesticides in Mother’s Milk and most of all Chernobyl disaster showed us that these dangers were real and could no longer be ignored.
The Green Movement also introduced new and not so new esoteric ideas and thinking to the mainstream.
Slowly, but surely things like crystals for improving your health, your very own homeopathic emergency kit or working with "energy" became acceptable even to "non-hippies".
Are there any crystals that can heal stupidity?
Suddenly "old & ancient" ideas made a big comeback – often with a huge commercial campaigns behind them. We saw an explosion of things like Yoga Studios, Feng Shui Consultants and Ayurveda Shampoos.
The Green movement had always a pagan and slightly naive and childish "connection to mother nature", but smart old fashioned and new alternative companies made huge amounts of money with the people’s desire to be "greener" and less "violent" to nature (and save some cute animals on the way).
The Media always loved Green Protests, because they sell and make everybody feel good.
Although the Green movement (often in cooperation with activists from groups like Green Peace) presented hard scientific facts to underline their arguments, the Green Mainstream also cultivated a new form of pseudo-religious Green Guilt or Doomsday panic.
Like the Catholic Church (and many other religious institutions) the Green Movement as well as Green Companies have exploited the Green Guilt and Fear for the Environment.
The Mass Media also loves to exploit the Green Doomsday Fears.
One of the most overused images of green campaigns.
It’s easy to make fun of the Green Guilt and some of the stupider fringes of the Green Movement. Overall it was and still is a great political power that changed a lot!
Just walk in any Western Supermarket and you find many green / organic products that are usually way better than processed food.
Also environmental laws to protect nature have vastly improved in the last 30 years – thanks to the Green Movement and many crazy Green Campaigns. Conserving our Bio Diversity has become a mainstream agenda.
The Sunflower – symbol for Green Politics.
Globalization (and the protest against it) and Fair Trade are important topics thanks to the Green Movement (and no thanks to many so called Socialist Parties, who were slow to spot that "trend").
The whole topic of sustainable growth (LOHAS) is also born out of Green Ideas.
The Green Revolution has still a long way to go. There is still a lack of strong Green Parties in big countries like US or UK. Countries like China or Russia hardly care about Green Ideas, although they slowly adapt some measures to fight climate change.
Let’s see how much the Green Movement can achieve till 2030? The first 30 years were pretty impressive …
