Commission - the most influential and best-known green in Britain - told
journalists today that British politicians were "in a state of cognitive
dissonance" over the ecological crisis.
Cognitive dissonance is the psychologists' term for an inability to make
rational decisions despite being able to clearly see the evidence.
The Green Party, on the other hand, has been right all along, Sir Jonathan
continued.
Speaking in Bristol at the launch of the South West Green Party campaign for
the European Parliament elections, Sir Jonathan said that he fully supported
the Green Party and had been a member continuously since its founding.
Sir Jonathan, who was director of Friends of the Earth before taking the top
UK sustainable development job, told his audience about a recent analysis he
had carried out on the 1979 election manifesto of the Ecology Party, the
former name of the Green Party. It showed that 65% of the policies which
were included have now been adopted by the three "mainstream" parties. "We
were right all along," he said. But he warned that the big three parties
still haven't got it right:
"Every single one of the issues that the Green Party has been campaigning on
for the last 35 years is getting worse and worse, which means that people
should no longer put off the day when they accept that the future is either
Green or not at all."
Jonathan Porritt drew attention to the recent negotiations in Copenhagen and
his amazement at the level of shock on the part of normally sober scientists
when confronted with increasing evidence of runaway climate change.
He said he has been unable to make clear his political allegiances while
working as a government adviser but this time around he is prepared to pin
his Green colours to the mast. Joking that he only had four months left at
the Sustainable Development Commission so he was unlikely to be sacked, he
gave a ringing endorsement to the Green Euro-candidates.
A party spokesperson commented: "Now we need all those scientists who are
fed up of governments dragging their heels over climate change to point out
which party has the right policies. Alternatively, scientists can stand on
the a-political sidelines and watch the holocaust that they've predicted
actually happen."
Comments
What's the deal with acid rain these days? Not heard about it for ages.
Acid rain was tackled effectively by international action, including importantly via the E.U. (EEC). A good example of how pollution knows no frontiers, and can be brought under control by determined politicians uniting around an environmental agenda.
Exactly what is needed now, and what there is too little sign of outside the Green Party.