Fifty years ago, on this day, June 8th, 1974, the party that became the Green Party was formed, You can read more about it at the superb Green History website, see for example here.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 330ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that after Blueprint for Survival, published as a special issue of The Ecologist, there had been interest in creating a new political party to represent the “what was needed for survival” policies to enact the blueprint (though “party” is doing a lot of work there – many were more interested in a broader-than-party-politics movement. The organisation was called People, and it held its first conference in Coventry. You can read more about it here and here. It changed its name to the Ecology Party, and then later changed its name to the Green Party.
What we learn from this is that environmentalists have understood the need for policy change and fairly early realised that it wasn’t going to happen in the mainstream parties. These would have decent individuals like Waylon Kennett, but the logic that the “grey parties” were wedded to was too, all encompassing.
What happened next well, the Ecology Party stood candidates and had its first general election broadcast in 1979. And it has generally been a force for sanity. Not that people are particularly keen on listening to sanity.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Also on this day:
June 8, 1973 – Australian Treasury dismisses carbon dioxide build-up. Yes, 1973.
June 8, 1973 – Australian Treasury forced to acknowledge carbon dioxide…