Environmentalism ("Green ideology") has been labelled an ideology by Ball, Dagger. Do you agree or disagree and why?

Résumé du document

The Greens often refuse to call environmentalism an ideology and most of them prefer to talk about ethics, a respect towards all forms of life. Some people do not consider that environmentalism is an ideology since every party now includes green measures in their platform. In France, for instance, the Grenelle of the Environment in 2007, a forum of environmentalists, business representatives and trade unions that aimed at combating climate change, was launched by the right-wing President Nicolas Sarkozy. Nevertheless, in the textbook 'Political Ideologies and the Democratic Ideal', it is asserted that environmentalism is an ideology among others such as liberalism, conservatism and fascism. They manage to present ecology through the explanatory, evaluative, orientative, and programmatic functions. Instead of considering environmentalism as a political focus on specific issues such as global warming, pollution and others, they consider it as a whole ideology. It is 'a fairly coherent and comprehensive set of ideas that explains and evaluates social conditions, helps people understand their place in society, and provides a program for social and political action'. This paper aims at demonstrating that there is indeed a Green ideology that exists. However, this paper acknowledges the necessity to go beyond the definition of ideology.

Extraits

[...] One blame the public, another blame the political economy and another the governments, so they won't have the same ideas to change the situation[6]. There are differences but the common point is that humans are the people responsible for the crisis and thus taking action can change the situation. Besides, other ideologies know the same kind of division. The conservatives are divided, some are traditional and have an organic view of society while others are individualist. Liberals are divided between welfare liberals and business liberals. [...]

[...] Tesh, "Causal Debates in Environmentalism" Sylvia N. Tesh, "Causal Debates in Environmentalism", 299-302. Lewis P. Hinchman and Sandra K. Hinchman, "Deep Ecology and the Revival of Natural Right", The Western Political Quarterly (published by University of Utah on behalf of the Western Political Science Association) , Vol No (Sep., 1989): 202, http://www.jstor.org/stable/448426 (accessed 2 November 2008). Dean E. Mann, "Democratic Politics and Environmental Policy", in Sheldon Kamieniecki, Robert O'Brien, Michael Clarke, Controversies in Environmental Policy (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1986) Luke Martell, Ecology and Society (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994), Chapter Five "Ecology and Political Theory", http://eprints.sussex.ac.uk/1757/01/Martell_ecolpol.pdf (accessed 12 November 2008). [...]

[...] Some criteria for being Green can be listed like willingness to share the world's wealth, participatory democracy, harmony between people of every race, decentralised communities, etc.[16]. The first aim is to save the Planet, and this criterion is considered in all measures. But other values are also green as we just said. And it is this set of beliefs around the nodal points that constitute the Green ideology. Ecocentrism and nature are the nodal points that constitute the centre of the whole chain of ideas of the Green ideology. Thus Green economic policy, Green policy for decentralization . exists per se. [...]

[...] Lastly the programmatic function is well-filled because Greens provide a programme for action even if all the Greens do not agree on which action to favour, like in other ideologies. Some Greens, which say the public is responsible, want to favour education to make people conscious of the situation. This is, for instance, the view expressed by Bill McKibben's in The End of Nature, a book that wants to make people more environmentally aware. He argued that all of us in the First World, have participated in something of a binge, a half century of unbelievable prosperity and ease. [...]

[...] But the Green ideology is different from some isolated green measures as we are going to demonstrate. Some are really not convinced about the existence of a Green ideology. Luke Martell admits that ecology is revolutionary for political theory since it implies "the need for bringing in previously excluded issues of concern". He refuses to talk about a green political theory since the values like equality and diversity Greens propose are not definitively green and environmental criteria are not equipped to solve many problems such as justice, equality and liberty[11]. [...]