Saturday 17 April 2010

'leader' debate

The debate last thursday was a good thing if it helped increase interest in politics. Nick Clegg came out marginally better than the others, BUT, if the Green leader, Caroline Lucas, had been on stage she would have outshone them all. Clegg said he would do things differently – BUT, how differently? All three still cling to the idea of economic ‘growth’. The Greens know that we have to change our ideas fundamentally if we are to climb out of recession without massive job losses and/or more damage to the environment. It was Caroline who came up with the term Green New Deal which the old parties have now adopted, but - the Greens’ policies actually hang together. ALL the old parties forget that the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment. We forget this at our peril. We can’t continue with infinite growth on a finite planet.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Shan, I think to be fair the Lib Dems do accept long term, we can’t have infinite economic growth on a finite planet, and the Lib Dems’ ‘Green Road to Recovery’ pre-dates the ‘Green New Deal’ (I’m sure the Greens didn’t copy the Lib Dems), albeit the GND is more ambitious – FoE and Greenpeace have given the Lib Dem a cautious welcome.

The question I would ask you is what would Greens do, as is quite possible, if the GND causes economic growth? Would you accept some short term growth in order to create a sustainable economy, or be happy to see job loses and cuts in order to avoid growth at any cost?

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