Most of the main Green policies are terrifying

Scroll to see replies

Does anyone have a source for the zero growth claim? It's not in the 2010 manifesto, it's not in their current mini-manifesto, the only mention I can find anywhere is this

Objectives
Ecological sustainability

EC200 To conserve natural planetary resources and to maintain the integrity of natural life-sustaining cycles; to regenerate areas made waste and take steps to avoid further ecological disaster; to reduce demand for energy and raw materials; to favour low energy non-polluting processes based on renewable resources.

EC201 To this end, the Citizens' Income (see EC730) will allow the current dependence on economic growth to cease, and allow zero or negative growth to be feasible without individual hardship should this be necessary on the grounds of sustainability. (see PB104-106)

From here

And this

PB106 The pursuit of economic growth as a force driving over-exploitation of the Earth must cease to be an automatic aim of human societies. We should instead aim to develop sustainable economies, which improve well-being focused on human values rather than consumerism. Traditional measures of economic activity, such as GDP, should be replaced by new indicators that measure progress towards this aim.

From here

This hardly matches up to the claims made in the torygraph or made my some in this thread.

Reply 41

RF_PineMarten

For those of you talking about economic growth, there are economists who back zero growth models of economies, like Tim Jackson who used to head the Sustainable Development Commission before David Cameron's government axed it. It may be highly debatable at the moment, but this thing about an economy without growth isn't something a few idealistic hippies dream up in their bedrooms.

I say it's highly debatable, but unfortunately that doesn't mean there is any debate at all. Hardly anyone questions the growth models, even though there's plenty there to question about it.

EDIT:

Original post by DaveSmith99

Does anyone have a source for the zero growth claim? It's not in the 2010 manifesto, it's not in their current mini-manifesto, the only mention I can find anywhere is this

From here

And this

From here

This hardly matches up to the claims made in the torygraph or made my some in this thread.

I was wondering what their actual policy was on that. The first thing I thought when I read it was about how accurate it is, because I'd expect the right wing press to exaggerate or misrepresent the policies of a left wing party.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 42

saayagain

Original post by Falcatas

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/green-party/11356354/Drugs-brothels-al-Qaeda-and-the-Beyonce-tax-the-Green-Party-plan-for-Britain.html

Zero growth economy?
Are they that unaware how economic growth has made everyone richer?

Good intentions, poor policies :smile:

Reply 43

Niassuh

Original post by RFowler

Air strikes on ISIS area good thing because it degrades their military strength. Our support for the Kurds includes weapons as well as air strikes, so we do air strikes and they do the fighting on the ground. And you can't negotiate with a group as extreme and brutal as ISIS.

Air strikes have helped Kurds and Iraqi government troops recapture some territory and has helped refugees, like those Yazidis who were stranded on mount Sinjar. The beleaguered population facing violence on a daily basis benefits from air strikes, as it reduces ISIS' military strength and therefore its ability to commit mass murder.

I do feel that Green party foreign policy is too anti-war to the point of being unrealistic, because they seem to oppose pretty much all military intervention no matter how strong the case for that intervention is. I'm not exactly a war hawk that screams for intervention everywhere, but sometimes military action is needed, and I don't think the Green party understands that very well. Not all problems can be solved with diplomacy alone.

All right ... Air strikes and drones always kill more civilians than terrorists! Why would you advocate air strikes in a case where we already have a dedicated ground force that needs support but is getting little if any?
I never said we should negotiate with ISIS.

There are few situations where intervention is needed, often these crises are caused by intervention anyway. And if intervention is absolutely necessary, then military support should never be given. I don't understand why people get so concerned about Yazidis whenever it comes to air strikes but wouldn't raise funds for refugee camps or even talk about where these refugees should go

Reply 44

midnightice

People live their lives for their own generation, rather than ones in the distant future. Tackling environmental issues will only see results in many hundreds of years, and zero growth will only be faced by a very distant future generation. It becomes a metaphysical matter, really; do you value now - the only time you will actually be alive - or the future, which you won't even be conscious of? This is why Green policy is nothing but utopian and we will never see it on a national scale.

Reply 45

n00

Drugs and brothels hey, sounds good.

[scroll] :banana:

[/scroll]

Reply 46

AstroNandos

Wow I'm amazed, they're even worse than I thought!

Don't they also want to minimise the military, leave NATO and scrap nuclear weapons too?

Reply 47

midnightice

Original post by AstroNandos

Wow I'm amazed, they're even worse than I thought!

Don't they also want to minimise the military, leave NATO and scrap nuclear weapons too?

The Naive Party :rolleyes:

Reply 48

missfats

lol. That's Aph for you.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 49

missfats

Original post by RFowler

The Green party controls a council which has had its budget cut by central government, they do not have the power to do whatever they want to because they have to work with what they've got. I think the Greens are in minority control of that council as well, which doesn't help things. You can't blame the Green party for everything that goes wrong in that council area.

Yes I do blame them.
They wanted to show change, vote them in to our consistencies, yet they fail. You do not need central government backing to improve recycling rates and make Brighton a better place as a whole.
The Tories are not really considerate of the environment, so we may understand why low rates may also occur in tory held constituencies but green has environment at its core, yet they can't deliver? We cannot surely trust them with anything.

my area is a strong labour constituency, and they have did fantastically for us, nearly everyone would vote again.
This is not the case for Brighton considering the amounts of people, who complain about the low level of "environmental responsibility", the greens (who are environmentalists) convey.
what irony?! my area is not a good area in terms of recycling or other environment issues, but we have better stuff to think about like housing etc.
People voted greens in because of their core aspects, if they fail on those, then it's really a no show here.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 50

Larissa14

I agree on some of there policies, Espically the one about getting rid of factory farming, this distresses the animals and if you eat factory farmed meat it's full of hormones and chemicals that are not good tomuse

Reply 51

Falcatas

Original post by n00

Drugs and brothels hey, sounds good.

[scroll] :banana:

[/scroll]

They'd tax the hell out of them.

They also want to increase taxes on alcohol and tobacco.

Reply 52

missfats

Original post by Falcatas

They'd tax the hell out of them.

They also want to increase taxes on alcohol and tobacco.

That doesn't work.

Considering habitual consumption are both aspects of alcohol and tobacco consumption.

another ridiculous green policy.
...

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 53

Chlorophile

Original post by missfats

Firstly, I think you're being very unfair to dismiss RFowler's very good point that councils are very limited in terms of what they can do, not least because of serious budget constraints that are not under their control, so it's not as if the Green Party can do whatever it wants in Brighton. Regarding recycling, what I'd be more interested in is the trends over time rather than the status quo. On top of that, there are plenty of reasons why it might be unfair to compare the recycling rates of different councils. Finally, recycling is important but judging a party solely by the effectiveness of its recycling policy is unfair. This is only one out of many, many aspects which you need to look at. In the grand scheme of things, in comparison to things like energy efficiency and waste reduction, recycling is of 'lesser' importance.

Reply 54

VannR

'Green energy intiatives, new taxes and public spending increase'. Perhaps I could live with those; doesn't sound too radical.

'Negative economic growth'. Uhhh, OK. How's that one supposed to work? More goods, production and money = more to go around, am I right?

'£71 a week for everyone'. Pure electioneering.

'Ramped-up inheritance tax'. Taking things a little far.

'Decriminalisng drugs and prostitution, allowing membership in terrorist groups, and trying to turn everyone into vegetarians'. These things are why the Greens will never get into power.

(All comments based on this article alone. Its representation of Green party policies, though clearly biased, might also be factually incorrect. I am open to that possibility.)

Reply 55

n00

Original post by Falcatas

They'd tax the hell out of them.

Ah well, still better than the rest of em.

Reply 56

redferry

Original post by Falcatas

You do realise this is false and actually the real result is growing inequality?

Trickle down economics is a lie.

Also you can't have infinite growth, it just isn't possible.

Reply 57

Jibola240

Some of them I strongly agree with. Some others sound very stupid to me. Not sure If I would no vote for them. Need to think about it.

Reply 58

_icecream

Don't care who wins as long as it's not the Tories

Reply 59

caitb97

I was reading their manifesto thinking it wasn't too bad, but then I saw they want to crack down on tax evasion, yet want more equality for the traveller community, who don't pay tax despite living in this country. Hypocritical party.