30 October 1997 Edition
How can the future be green?
Opinion: Robert Allen argues for a new direction for green politics in Ireland
Anyone looking at Irish society and the role that environmentalists have played over the years could be forgiven for believing it has been a great success story. Ireland is nuke-free and there are numerous campaigns highlighting ecological destruction and the protection of endangered species.
This is easily put in perspective. Asked, a few years ago, how effective the green movement are as political lobbyists, Fine Gael's Jim Mitchell answered: ``Not as effective as SPUC, thank God.''
The reason for this ineffectiveness has much to do with the Irish green movement's tentative beginnings and its present nebulous existence in Irish life. In the 26 Counties the emergence of the modern green movement had more to do with industrial and governmental policies of the late fifties and a lot less to do with the global issues which forced it onto the public agenda in America, Britain and Germany.
Without any kind of integral ecological, economic, social and political analysis, communities and individuals fighting undesirable development find themselves fragmented and confused, unable to take their campaigns beyond the parochial. Successfully marginalised in this way community groups gradually become powerless, their energy reduced to the flickering flame of single issue campaigns, with burnout inevitable
Anti-toxic and anti-mining groups evolved out of the anti-nuclear movement of the mid-seventies. Friends of the Earth set up in Dublin in 1974 and offshoots sprang up around the country, concerned largely with the proposed Carnsore nuclear power station in County Wexford. Gradually other environmental groups with varying, mostly single issue, agendas began to form, largely with local bases.
An Taisce would argue that they preceded this seventies explosion of green groups by several decades. Founded in 1948 with a mandate from its members to encourage care of the environment, An Taisce initially concerned itself with the Irish landscape, architecture and settlements, thus getting a reputation as a heritage group dealing with soft environmental issues. That changed with the introduction of the extraction and toxic industries, as An Taisce got serious about green issues. But that enthusiasm eventually waned.
While the seventies green campaigns were primarily about nuclear issues (Windscale/Sellafield, Carnsore, radioactive waste dumping, uranium mining) a general concern about environmental degradation prompted some people to drop out of society. Rural parts of Ireland became green havens for foreigners and Irish alike. One of the most successful green initiatives which came out of the seventies was `Common Ground', a magazine started in 1977 as `The North-West Newsletter' by a group of people living alternative lifestyles. The original editorial group were all ``blow-ins'' from abroad. These days it is an all-Irish affair and unsure of its future.
By the end of the seventies alternative living and environmentalism were sexy terms and more and more groups began to form. Those who believed it was possible to work within the capitalist system and still raise the green agenda began to move, as academic Sue Baker put it, ``towards life-style issues, alternative energy sources and what may be called `green politics'''. Many of the individuals in these groups became involved in Comhaontas Glas (Green Alliance), which had evolved out of the Ecology Party, which had been formed in 1981.
Throughout the eighties the Green Alliance attempted to elevate green issues onto the political agenda and when some of its members decided that hard-core politics were not their forte the Alliance split and the Green Party was subsequently formed in 1988. Within a year the Green Party had in Roger Garland its first TD when he took a seat in the Dail as a representative of Dublin South.
Throughout the mid-to-late eighties the green movement began to grow out of all proportion to its seventies beginnings and An Taisce lost its mantle as the only 26-County body stating the environmental issue. Out of HOPE (Help Organise Peaceful Energy), a west Cork group formed in 1980 to oppose radioactive dumping, Earthwatch was formed in 1986 and subsequently became a member of Friends of the Earth International. A year later, in May 1987, former green activist John Bowler was appointed Greenpeace Ireland's national co-ordinator.
By the turn of the decade the green movement was a chameleon-like creation with local and national groups pushing their specific ecological agendas. In 1979 the Irish Wildlife Federation grew out of the Irish Wildbird Conservancy (formed in 1968), according to Dublin branch chairperson Ciaran Ryan, ``to broaden out to general wildlife issues instead of concentrating on bird life''. And various individuals personified specific environmental causes. The preservation of broad-leafed trees became the obsession of Australian Jan Alexander and she formed CRANN in 1986. German Karin Dubsky fought to increase awareness of the state of Ireland's coastline. Her Dublin Bay Environmental Group launched its Coastline survey in September 1987 and followed it up two years later with another survey, Coastline Europe. Formal and informal alliances became commonplace as the large and small Non-Governmental-Organisations (NGOs) sought to integrate with each other. In November 1990 Deonoibrithe Caomhantais (Conservation Volunteers Ireland) was established by 16 voluntary NGOs, including An Taisce, the Irish Peatland Conservation Council and others, and became a member of the International Conservation Action Network. In April 1991, following a conference in Trinity College, Dublin titled `Women and the Environment: What can we do?', an Irish Women's Environmental Network was founded to empower women to act on the environment.
With all this activity it's impossible to quantify the impact the green movement has had on Irish society, significantly in the 26 Counties. An Taisce has certainly had the most impact over the past four decades, particularly in raising public awareness yet former chairman Philip Mullally is not sure if the organisation has made a lasting impact. ``I think the issue really is that we have not yet linked into the real needs of the country and its people,'' he said in 1986.
``One could not say that An Taisce's influence has been dramatic,'' David Hickie said a few years ago, ``more a slow and gradual influence over a number of decades. One could say that the strength of conservation organisations in any country is proportional to the problems experienced. Irish people still have a low perception of the environment compared with continental Europe, although it's gradually getting better.''
Earthwatch and Greenpeace are somewhat arrogant about the impact their respective organisations have had on Irish life. ``Substantial and positive,'' say Earthwatch, but both NGOs admit that it is almost impossible to quantify this impact. Jeremy Wates, Earthwatch's former co-ordinator, is a little more cynical about it. ``Not that many years ago, Irish politicians were not embarrassed to stand over bad environmental policies. The environment was simply not an issue. Then they began to be embarrassed but they did not do anything to improve the policies. The only thing they did was learn to talk green.''
But the public were environmentally aware. In 1992 a Dublin government survey confirmed this. When asked if the protection of the environment and problems of pollution were ``an urgent and immediate problem; a problem for the future; or not really a problem at all'', 76% of the general public and 91% of companies said it was an urgent and immediate problem.
While the green movement as a whole is not seen as an effective lobbying force, individual campaigners, like the former Dublin Zoo Keeper Brendan Price for example, have managed to bend the ears of several politicians and gain some respect for their environmental arguments. When Jim Mitchell stated that the green movement was ``very active and articulate with lots of sensible ideas'' he was repeating a general belief but the PDs echoed another sentiment, that the public perception of the green movement is that it is ``well meaning but idealistic''.
There has been a strong argument that the green movement in Ireland will not evolve if it continues to use established social, economic, legal and political modes of activity. But the argument in support of small, local and autonomous green groups working outside the system, which first surfaced during the anti-nuclear campaigns in the mid-seventies, did not immediately find favour with the myriad green and eco-community groups spread around the country, for several reasons. While some groups have remained small and anarchistic, others have formed into regional alliances, like the Cork Environmental Alliance, which, according to some critics, diluted their power. Yet it did give them a combined regional strength which they used to their advantage. But it also gave them the same headaches as the national NGOs, lack of funds, inadequate resources and few professional full time workers.
The ideal that concentrated power lies with a mass green, social movement developing outside traditional parliamentary politics, which also was first expressed during the anti-nuclear campaigns, has to a degree been shattered. An example of this has been the relative failure of anti-toxic campaigns of recent years, which brought back some of the same activists involved in the anti-nuclear campaign. ``Lacking a national organisational dimension, longer-term and planned goals, being reactive rather than primarily pro-active in nature, they are in a weak position in terms of their ability to influence the direction of a national industrial development policy so rooted in the ideology of all the main political parties since the 1950s,'' Baker wrote in 1990.
Since she wrote this there has been the impression of much change yet in reality there has been no change at all. The anti-nuke movement is resting on its laurels, convinced it has won the war. The anti-toxic movement has become fragmented, with only the Cork Environmental Alliance a force to be reckoned with by local government and industry.
Those concerned with conservation and cultural heritage have become soft and complacent, believing that by raising the green agenda to a higher level of consciousness they have achieved their aims. The alternative living types are no longer seen as hippies because nearly everyone under 30 looks like a refugee from Woodstock, albeit with nothing more than a superficial awareness of green issues and I don't mean the increase in vegetarianism and veganism. The animal rights people have been vocal and violent on occasions but without a focus for their anger, specifically why the ruling elites and power brokers need to be taken out instead of the fox, they have made no real impact.
In general the organised greens have taken their place in capitalist society, believing they are contributing to the debate about ecological destruction. And in essence environmentalism in Ireland has been one big game played out by people with bourgeois sensibilities, liberal politics and careerist ambitions - the winners being those who gain enough points to acquire a ticket to ride on the capitalist machine.
Defending the earth was never going to be easy. Now, in Ireland at last, it is no longer a game or even political theatre. To lobby and to compromise has characterised the greens, but that time is beginning to fade. Whether the campaigners at the Glen of the Downs realise this will determine their success or failure. Started as a no-compromise direct action campaign it has been taken over by the bourgeois greens with their pious sensibilities and ignorance of the realities of environmental destruction, social injustice and rampant oppression.
Through the eighties and nineties direct action has been a factor in environmental campaigning in the 32 Counties but it has never been a movement, it has always been isolated and fragmented - a reaction with a single focus, without a strategy. While this kind of spontaneous action has slowed industrial development and occasionally derailed the corporate juggernaut it has been unable to direct the focus onto the reasons why a radical opposition must exist and why that opposition needs to challenge and change capitalist society. Without any kind of integral ecological, economic, social and political analysis, communities and individuals fighting undesirable development find themselves fragmented and confused, unable to take their campaigns beyond the parochial. Successfully marginalised in this way community groups gradually become powerless, their energy reduced to the flickering flame of single issue campaigns, with burnout inevitable.
In the midst of all this the issues are left among the debris, while the cause of environmentalism becomes another aspect of capitalist society. In simple terms this negates any self-empowerment. The emancipatory logic they may have started with is warped into aborted, subservient, and conventional ideologies of the status quo, an argument made by social ecologist Murray Bookchin. ``The problem they face is the need to discover the sweeping implications of the issues they raise; the achievement of a totally new, non-hierarchical society in which the domination of nature by man, of woman by man, and of society by the state is completely abolished - technologically, institutionally, culturally and in the very rationality and sensibilities of the individual.''
If the green movement in Ireland is to make any kind of social and political impact it must redefine itself as a direct action force which seeks and gives no quarter. Only then will it have any real success.
Anyone looking at Irish society and the role that environmentalists have played over the years could be forgiven for believing it has been a great success story. Ireland is nuke-free and there are numerous campaigns highlighting ecological destruction and the protection of endangered species.
This is easily put in perspective. Asked, a few years ago, how effective the green movement are as political lobbyists, Fine Gael's Jim Mitchell answered: ``Not as effective as SPUC, thank God.''
The reason for this ineffectiveness has much to do with the Irish green movement's tentative beginnings and its present nebulous existence in Irish life. In the 26 Counties the emergence of the modern green movement had more to do with industrial and governmental policies of the late fifties and a lot less to do with the global issues which forced it onto the public agenda in America, Britain and Germany.
Without any kind of integral ecological, economic, social and political analysis, communities and individuals fighting undesirable development find themselves fragmented and confused, unable to take their campaigns beyond the parochial. Successfully marginalised in this way community groups gradually become powerless, their energy reduced to the flickering flame of single issue campaigns, with burnout inevitable
Anti-toxic and anti-mining groups evolved out of the anti-nuclear movement of the mid-seventies. Friends of the Earth set up in Dublin in 1974 and offshoots sprang up around the country, concerned largely with the proposed Carnsore nuclear power station in County Wexford. Gradually other environmental groups with varying, mostly single issue, agendas began to form, largely with local bases.
An Taisce would argue that they preceded this seventies explosion of green groups by several decades. Founded in 1948 with a mandate from its members to encourage care of the environment, An Taisce initially concerned itself with the Irish landscape, architecture and settlements, thus getting a reputation as a heritage group dealing with soft environmental issues. That changed with the introduction of the extraction and toxic industries, as An Taisce got serious about green issues. But that enthusiasm eventually waned.
While the seventies green campaigns were primarily about nuclear issues (Windscale/Sellafield, Carnsore, radioactive waste dumping, uranium mining) a general concern about environmental degradation prompted some people to drop out of society. Rural parts of Ireland became green havens for foreigners and Irish alike. One of the most successful green initiatives which came out of the seventies was `Common Ground', a magazine started in 1977 as `The North-West Newsletter' by a group of people living alternative lifestyles. The original editorial group were all ``blow-ins'' from abroad. These days it is an all-Irish affair and unsure of its future.
By the end of the seventies alternative living and environmentalism were sexy terms and more and more groups began to form. Those who believed it was possible to work within the capitalist system and still raise the green agenda began to move, as academic Sue Baker put it, ``towards life-style issues, alternative energy sources and what may be called `green politics'''. Many of the individuals in these groups became involved in Comhaontas Glas (Green Alliance), which had evolved out of the Ecology Party, which had been formed in 1981.
Throughout the eighties the Green Alliance attempted to elevate green issues onto the political agenda and when some of its members decided that hard-core politics were not their forte the Alliance split and the Green Party was subsequently formed in 1988. Within a year the Green Party had in Roger Garland its first TD when he took a seat in the Dail as a representative of Dublin South.
Throughout the mid-to-late eighties the green movement began to grow out of all proportion to its seventies beginnings and An Taisce lost its mantle as the only 26-County body stating the environmental issue. Out of HOPE (Help Organise Peaceful Energy), a west Cork group formed in 1980 to oppose radioactive dumping, Earthwatch was formed in 1986 and subsequently became a member of Friends of the Earth International. A year later, in May 1987, former green activist John Bowler was appointed Greenpeace Ireland's national co-ordinator.
By the turn of the decade the green movement was a chameleon-like creation with local and national groups pushing their specific ecological agendas. In 1979 the Irish Wildlife Federation grew out of the Irish Wildbird Conservancy (formed in 1968), according to Dublin branch chairperson Ciaran Ryan, ``to broaden out to general wildlife issues instead of concentrating on bird life''. And various individuals personified specific environmental causes. The preservation of broad-leafed trees became the obsession of Australian Jan Alexander and she formed CRANN in 1986. German Karin Dubsky fought to increase awareness of the state of Ireland's coastline. Her Dublin Bay Environmental Group launched its Coastline survey in September 1987 and followed it up two years later with another survey, Coastline Europe. Formal and informal alliances became commonplace as the large and small Non-Governmental-Organisations (NGOs) sought to integrate with each other. In November 1990 Deonoibrithe Caomhantais (Conservation Volunteers Ireland) was established by 16 voluntary NGOs, including An Taisce, the Irish Peatland Conservation Council and others, and became a member of the International Conservation Action Network. In April 1991, following a conference in Trinity College, Dublin titled `Women and the Environment: What can we do?', an Irish Women's Environmental Network was founded to empower women to act on the environment.
With all this activity it's impossible to quantify the impact the green movement has had on Irish society, significantly in the 26 Counties. An Taisce has certainly had the most impact over the past four decades, particularly in raising public awareness yet former chairman Philip Mullally is not sure if the organisation has made a lasting impact. ``I think the issue really is that we have not yet linked into the real needs of the country and its people,'' he said in 1986.
``One could not say that An Taisce's influence has been dramatic,'' David Hickie said a few years ago, ``more a slow and gradual influence over a number of decades. One could say that the strength of conservation organisations in any country is proportional to the problems experienced. Irish people still have a low perception of the environment compared with continental Europe, although it's gradually getting better.''
Earthwatch and Greenpeace are somewhat arrogant about the impact their respective organisations have had on Irish life. ``Substantial and positive,'' say Earthwatch, but both NGOs admit that it is almost impossible to quantify this impact. Jeremy Wates, Earthwatch's former co-ordinator, is a little more cynical about it. ``Not that many years ago, Irish politicians were not embarrassed to stand over bad environmental policies. The environment was simply not an issue. Then they began to be embarrassed but they did not do anything to improve the policies. The only thing they did was learn to talk green.''
But the public were environmentally aware. In 1992 a Dublin government survey confirmed this. When asked if the protection of the environment and problems of pollution were ``an urgent and immediate problem; a problem for the future; or not really a problem at all'', 76% of the general public and 91% of companies said it was an urgent and immediate problem.
While the green movement as a whole is not seen as an effective lobbying force, individual campaigners, like the former Dublin Zoo Keeper Brendan Price for example, have managed to bend the ears of several politicians and gain some respect for their environmental arguments. When Jim Mitchell stated that the green movement was ``very active and articulate with lots of sensible ideas'' he was repeating a general belief but the PDs echoed another sentiment, that the public perception of the green movement is that it is ``well meaning but idealistic''.
There has been a strong argument that the green movement in Ireland will not evolve if it continues to use established social, economic, legal and political modes of activity. But the argument in support of small, local and autonomous green groups working outside the system, which first surfaced during the anti-nuclear campaigns in the mid-seventies, did not immediately find favour with the myriad green and eco-community groups spread around the country, for several reasons. While some groups have remained small and anarchistic, others have formed into regional alliances, like the Cork Environmental Alliance, which, according to some critics, diluted their power. Yet it did give them a combined regional strength which they used to their advantage. But it also gave them the same headaches as the national NGOs, lack of funds, inadequate resources and few professional full time workers.
The ideal that concentrated power lies with a mass green, social movement developing outside traditional parliamentary politics, which also was first expressed during the anti-nuclear campaigns, has to a degree been shattered. An example of this has been the relative failure of anti-toxic campaigns of recent years, which brought back some of the same activists involved in the anti-nuclear campaign. ``Lacking a national organisational dimension, longer-term and planned goals, being reactive rather than primarily pro-active in nature, they are in a weak position in terms of their ability to influence the direction of a national industrial development policy so rooted in the ideology of all the main political parties since the 1950s,'' Baker wrote in 1990.
Since she wrote this there has been the impression of much change yet in reality there has been no change at all. The anti-nuke movement is resting on its laurels, convinced it has won the war. The anti-toxic movement has become fragmented, with only the Cork Environmental Alliance a force to be reckoned with by local government and industry.
Those concerned with conservation and cultural heritage have become soft and complacent, believing that by raising the green agenda to a higher level of consciousness they have achieved their aims. The alternative living types are no longer seen as hippies because nearly everyone under 30 looks like a refugee from Woodstock, albeit with nothing more than a superficial awareness of green issues and I don't mean the increase in vegetarianism and veganism. The animal rights people have been vocal and violent on occasions but without a focus for their anger, specifically why the ruling elites and power brokers need to be taken out instead of the fox, they have made no real impact.
In general the organised greens have taken their place in capitalist society, believing they are contributing to the debate about ecological destruction. And in essence environmentalism in Ireland has been one big game played out by people with bourgeois sensibilities, liberal politics and careerist ambitions - the winners being those who gain enough points to acquire a ticket to ride on the capitalist machine.
Defending the earth was never going to be easy. Now, in Ireland at last, it is no longer a game or even political theatre. To lobby and to compromise has characterised the greens, but that time is beginning to fade. Whether the campaigners at the Glen of the Downs realise this will determine their success or failure. Started as a no-compromise direct action campaign it has been taken over by the bourgeois greens with their pious sensibilities and ignorance of the realities of environmental destruction, social injustice and rampant oppression.
Through the eighties and nineties direct action has been a factor in environmental campaigning in the 32 Counties but it has never been a movement, it has always been isolated and fragmented - a reaction with a single focus, without a strategy. While this kind of spontaneous action has slowed industrial development and occasionally derailed the corporate juggernaut it has been unable to direct the focus onto the reasons why a radical opposition must exist and why that opposition needs to challenge and change capitalist society. Without any kind of integral ecological, economic, social and political analysis, communities and individuals fighting undesirable development find themselves fragmented and confused, unable to take their campaigns beyond the parochial. Successfully marginalised in this way community groups gradually become powerless, their energy reduced to the flickering flame of single issue campaigns, with burnout inevitable.
In the midst of all this the issues are left among the debris, while the cause of environmentalism becomes another aspect of capitalist society. In simple terms this negates any self-empowerment. The emancipatory logic they may have started with is warped into aborted, subservient, and conventional ideologies of the status quo, an argument made by social ecologist Murray Bookchin. ``The problem they face is the need to discover the sweeping implications of the issues they raise; the achievement of a totally new, non-hierarchical society in which the domination of nature by man, of woman by man, and of society by the state is completely abolished - technologically, institutionally, culturally and in the very rationality and sensibilities of the individual.''
If the green movement in Ireland is to make any kind of social and political impact it must redefine itself as a direct action force which seeks and gives no quarter. Only then will it have any real success.