There’s a song by the short-lived and under appreciated British rock band The Jeevas, fronted by Kula Shaker singer Crispian Mills, called How Much do You Suck and it goes a little bit like this:

How much do you have to suck
To lose a popularity contest to Saddam Hussein
You’d have to be a sleaze
An oil-drilling fiend
How much do you suck?

Simple, effective, gets its point across, no prizes for guessing which ex President of America that one’s about. Sadly not all propaganda is quite as successful in communicating a clear message. Take the recent No Pressure video from the 10:10 campaign which has been causing quite a stirthis weekend for all the wrong reasons, for example.

It’s hard not to wonder how any right minded eco activist in the 10:10 campaign could have thought a film by Richard Curtis was a good idea in the first place, let alone a film about blowing kids up for expressing apathy over the issue of climate change. I suppose it could have been worse. It could have starred Hugh Grant.

There is a degree to which I think the anti-science loonies in the climate change deniers camp need to develop a bit of a sense of humour. South Park makes socio-political points in much more controversial ways every week. This video was clearly designed to tap into that kind of humour to make the point that softy-softly approaches to getting people to bring down their carbon emissions just won’t work anymore, that there has to be pressure because the millions of people who are having their lives destroyed by the effects of climate change are already feeling the pressure themselves.

But was that message successful? Clearly not if all the headlines that have followed have been about teachers blowing up kids, the most charitable finding fault with the judgement and humour of the campaign, the least holding it up as an example of the extreme and dangerous misanthropy of the ‘eco fascists’ and ‘climate tyrants’. Those holding the latter opinion, much like those who believe in fairies, Father Christmas or intelligent design, are not likely to be swayed by a more reasonable argument, or a more nuanced piece of propaganda. But if the wider public watching this video come away without knowing quite what the environmentalists were trying to say beyond ‘agree with us or we’ll blow you up’, then clearly this video is a bit of an own goal.

In other news, which has caused much less of a stir, Osama bin Laden has come out calling for action against climate change. Going by some of his past stunts, not least the demolition of a couple of rather famous buildings in downtown Manhettan nearly a decade ago, bin Laden is not exactly known for his overwhelming popularity, the subtlety of his attempts to get his point across, or the effectiveness of his public relations exercises. Which makes one wonder. How much do you have to suck to lose a popularity contest with Osama bin Laden?

This is the full version of an article I co-authored with Ambika Hiranandani and Roland Miller McCall which was first published in this month’s New Internationalist

It is said that the cow is the mother of all civilisation. Of all the images of India, few are more enduring or endearing than that of the cow, revered by Hindus for its life-giving milk, roaming free in the city streets. But this postcard picture belies a darker truth. India is one of the world’s largest exporters of leather. And whilst the killing of cows is banned in all but two states, we find that in the world of the illegal leather trade, animal rights abuses and environmental degradation are rife as the country cashes in on its most sacred symbol to meet the Western desire for leather.

“According to many local council laws, slaughter houses need to be licensed,” says Nilesh Bhanage, head of the Plants and Animals Welfare Society. “Many of the other slaughter houses don’t have licences.” Despite stringent laws in place to protect the rights of animals, illegal slaughter houses remain unmonitored and unregulated. A source from one of India’s leading exporters of leather handbags to the UK, who wishes to remain anonymous, informs us that illegal leather is commonly used. “It is often cheaper that way,” they tell us. “It is not a transparent industry. There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes to cut costs and make ends meet. Animal rights are greatly compromised.” A leading leather technologist, who also wishes to remain anonymous, estimates that as much as 75% of all Indian leather could be from illegal sources.

The slaughter of cattle is permitted only in West Bengal and Kerala and it is illegal to transport cows for slaughter across state borders. Neither boasts a significant cow population and yet hundreds of thousands of cows are taken to these states from all over India to be killed. “Traders bribe officials to look the other way as they pack the cows into vehicles in such high numbers that their bones break, they suffocate and many die en route to slaughter,” explains Poorva Joshipura, director of PETA Europe. “Thousands of others are made to walk – often without food or water. If they collapse from exhaustion, herders break their tailbones or smear chilli pepper and tobacco in their eyes to make them walk again.”

Animal cruelty in India, however, runs much deeper than the illegal trade. “The treatment of animals in both licensed and unlicensed slaughterhouses is the same,” Joshipura tells us. “In both cases, basic animal protection laws are totally ignored. Animals are dragged into slaughterhouses before they are cut open – often with dirty, blunt knives and in full view of one another – on floors that are covered with faeces, blood, guts and urine.” Some animals, she says, are even skinned and dismembered whilst still conscious.

Operating, as they do, in clear contravention of the law, it is unsurprising that India’s slaughterhouse workers are an infamously reticent bunch. We visited a slaughterhouse near Mumbai in an attempt to see for ourselves the conditions in which animals are killed. “Go away,” they told us. “We will not talk to you.”

Undeterred, we took our concerns to Ali Ahmed Khan, Executive Director of India’s Council for Leather Exports. “On behalf of the Indian leather industry, I would like to reiterate that the industry is indeed concerned and is of the firm opinion that the treatment of animals should be humane,” he tells us. “Animals are slaughtered mainly for the meat and are not being killed for the sake of leather. Hides and skins are recovered as by-products of the meat industry. Thus there are other stakeholders involved in the process of slaughtering of animals.”

“This is a myth,” counters Maneka Gandhi, former Minister for Animal Welfare. As a member of the renowned Nehru-Gandhi family, she has a powerful political name to live up to, but she has made her own name as one of India’s leading animal rights activists. “India is the largest leather manufacturer in the world,” she tells us. “This business running into hundreds of thousands of skins daily is not going to wait for slaughterhouse skins alone.” Although the skins and hides of sheep, pigs and goats are a significant source of material for tanners, Gandhi explains that cattle hides and calf skins account for most footwear and leather goods. “In the Al Kabeer meat processing plant, the animal is skinned while it is still alive and hanging upside down,” she says.

The problems endemic to India’s leather industry go far beyond the slaughter of cattle. “The leather industry is one of the most polluting industries in the world,” says MC Mehta, a leading environmental lawyer who has won a number of landmark cases against India’s tanneries. “In India it is responsible for creating a lot of suffering in peoples lives, by damaging their health and polluting their drinking water.” Large quantities of dangerous chemicals such as chromium are routinely dumped into the rivers. “Many tanneries have closed down and shifted to other states where governments are less vigilant,” Mehta says. Indeed authorities, keen to attract tanneries, often lower pollution standards as a draw card. Special tannery zones have been created with common effluent treatment plants, but Mehta points out that in order to save money on electricity, many operators only turn the plants on during government inspections. Like the cow, the Ganges is sacred to Hindu culture. Like the cow, it is suffering at the hands of the leather industry.

The UK is the third largest importer of Indian leather. Despite the mounting evidence, leading British retailers continue to use Indian leather in their shoes, garments, handbags and furniture. We raised the issue of serious animal cruelty and severe environmental degradation with Harrods and asked them what they were doing to ensure illegal leather did not end up in their products. “Harrods would prefer not to comment on this,” replies Becky Smith, Senior Fashion Press Officer.

Not all British retailers are as tight-lipped about the ethical side of their trade. Marks and Spencer have led the way in trumpeting corporate social responsibility. “As a result of our concerns around the industry, we took a major stance over ten years ago when we became the first major retailer to ban the use of cow hides sourced from India,” the company’s Deputy Head of Corporate PR tells us. Some American retail giants, such as Kenneth Cole and Liz Claiborne, have followed suit by boycotting Indian leather entirely.

But the illegal devastation to the environment and the inhumane treatment of India’s once sacred cows will continue as long as there is a demand for leather. The unfortunate truth that as environmental conservation and animal welfare legislation has been enforced in the West, cruel and destructive practises have been exported to the developing world, means the responsibility is one we all share.

The answer for Maneka Gandhi is clear. “Don’t buy leather,” she says. “The best thing you can do to help these animals is to stop wearing them.”

Hagley Road to Ladywood has an excellent piece by Third Estate hotseat alumnus, Peter Tatchell, on why we should vote Green. Well worth a read.

Labour has lost its heart and soul. It has become the party of war, privatisation and the erosion of hard-won civil liberties. The Lib Dems support free market capitalism, use dirty tricks during election campaigns, and when they get into office they always drift to the right. The Conservatives are split between modernisers and the reactionary old guard. Their green-friendly image is contradicted by their anti-green policies of supporting new motorways, aviation expansion and more nuclear power stations – just like Labour.

As I see it, the Green Party is the most progressive force in British politics, with a visionary agenda for democratic reform, social justice, human rights, global equity, environmental protection, peace and internationalism.

With an empowering new political and economic paradigm, the Greens offer the best hope for radical reform, as set out in our Manifesto for a Sustainable Society.

Unlike the far left, the Greens often win. We’ve got elected representatives in local councils all over Britain, and in the London Assembly and the Scottish and European Parliaments. Opinion polls suggest that the Greens are poised to win their first MPs. Caroline Lucas is leading in Brighton Pavilion and the Greens are also polling well in Norwich South and Lewisham Deptford.

The Greens are not just an environmental party. We are also a social justice party, with commitments to industrial democracy, workers cooperatives and trade union rights. Our aim is a democratic economy, which gives all employees a real say in how their institution is run and which utilises their accumulated skill and experience to improve private enterprises and public services.

We want to make society fairer and more equal, and to redistribute wealth and power. This democratisation and socialisation of the economy is necessary, we argue, to improve productivity, prevent a repeat of the reckless decisions that led to the economic meltdown and to reorient production to meet people’s needs. This includes switching from weapons production to the manufacture of renewable energy and advanced medical technologies, which are socially useful and have huge export potential.

The Greens are not retreads of the old Left. Traditional socialism is flawed. It is based on a left-wing version of big business growth-driven economics, with the goal of producing more and consuming more. This uncritical drive to maximise economic expansion is destroying our planet, causing life-threatening pollution, climate chaos and species extinction. It is also dramatically depleting reserves of natural resources, such as oil, that are vital to the global economy and to the long-term maintenance of a decent standard of living. This old-style growth-fixated economics, which is shared by both the left and the right, is outdated and reactionary. It is time for fresh thinking.

The Greens argue that quality of life and fair shares for all are more important than the left’s simplistic agenda of spending more on public services. Greens would, of course, invest more in health and education. But we also believe that government needs to radically rethink basic premises, like shifting the focus in the NHS from curative to preventative medicine. Our aim is to ensure that many fewer people get sick in the first place, rather than merely throwing more money into treating people once they become ill.

The Greens realise that the whole economic system has to change, in order to meet people’s needs and to ensure the survival of life on this planet. We propose a synthesis of the best bits of red and green, combining social justice with sustainable economics.

A good example of how we would do this is our proposed Roosevelt-style Green New Deal. It would stimulate the economy through large-scale government investment in socially and environmentally valuable energy conservation, renewable energy and cheap, hi-tech public transport. This would slash carbon emissions and tackle climate change, as well as creating hundreds of thousands of green jobs.

We’d fund the Green New Deal by axing Labour and Tory plans to waste £160 billion on Trident nuclear missiles (£76bn), super aircraft carriers (£4bn), Eurofighter aircraft (£20bn), A400 air transporter (£3bn), national identity register (£10bn), the Afghan war (£5bn), motorway building and widening (£30bn) and NHS computerisation (£20bn).

The Green Party rejects the failed neo-liberal economic policies that are backed by the three main parties – policies that recently pushed the world to the brink of a second great depression and which leave billions of people malnourished, illiterate, homeless, diseased and impoverished. But amid the gloom, we say: A different world is possible. The future is bright – bright Green.

This article, which I co-authored with environmental lawyers Ambika Hiranandani and Roland Miller McCall, was first published in The Times of India

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day,” goes the old Chinese proverb. “Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Nowadays, with massive trawlers dragging 60km nets scooping up a dozen jumbo jets worth of fish in one go, that adage is looking rather shaky. Not only is overfishing the single greatest threat to the ecosystems of our oceans, but as fish are caught much faster than they can reproduce, it is driving traditional fisherman, who can no longer rely on their skills to feed themselves for a lifetime, out of business. Such is the scale of the problem that in recent days Cheers star Ted Danson has weighed in to slam the subsidies that promote unsustainable fishing practices. But we shouldn’t need American TV icons to tell us we’re on a bad path.

As many as 20 million tonnes of fish are caught every year by bottom trawling. It’s a non-selective method that takes no prisoners. Powerful boats trudge metal-weighted nets across the ocean floor, scooping up turtles, sharks, dolphins, endangered species and young fish. “The holes in the mechanised nets are very, very small and so fish don’t get a chance to breed,” says Narendra R Patil, general secretary of Machimar Kuti Samhiti. “There are no fish left for traditional fishermen.” According to a 2004 study by the United Nations Environment Programme, almost a quarter of the fish pulled from the sea never even find their way to market. Meanwhile the oceans, once considered an inexhaustible resource, are running out of fish. “The fish don’t stand a chance,” says the World Wildlife Fund.

It is, however, another old Chinese proverb that tells us, “It’s better to light a candle than curse the darkness.” If we act now to bring overfishing under control by using restrictive gear, closing areas to fleets and limiting the total allowable catch, there is hope. A study published this year in the journal Science found that in a few select regions such as Iceland and Australia, careful management of marine ecosystems has allowed fish-stocks to recover. “Our oceans are not a lost cause,” says Professor Boris Worm, a marine biologist at Dalhousie University and a co-author of the report. However, he cautions that the trend, although far from irreversible, is far from being reversed. “Across all regions we are still seeing a troubling trend of increasing stock collapse,” he says.

Efforts to deal with the problem are continually hampered by ineffectual regulation at an international level. According to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, every nation maintains sole fishing rights within their Exclusive Economic Zone. The high seas, however, are known as the common heritage of mankind, a heart-warming term evoking images of international co-operation, that in reality has entirely the opposite effect. In many areas, illegal and unregulated fishing is on the rise, undermining national and regional pushes towards sustainability. “Regional Fisheries Management Organisations, the cornerstones of international fisheries governance, are struggling to fulfil their mandates despite concerted efforts to improve their performance,” the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation found. The problem arising, in part, from “a lack of political will to implement decisions in a timely manner.” It is, after all, hard to light a candle in the wind.

An international consensus has emerged on the need to combat the environmental crime of Illegal Unregulated and Unreported fishing by blocking illegal fish from entering international trade, thus removing financial incentive. However, eliminating illegal fishing, whilst a necessary first step, is not enough to avert the coming crisis.

As Abbie Hoffman once said, “murder in a uniform is heroic, in a costume it is a crime.” When the criminal element has been removed, what remains to be challenged are the legal methods which continue to devastate the oceans. As such, it is imperative that we eliminate bottom trawling, by-catch and discards. In the state of Maharashtra, a ban on fishing is in place from June 1^st to August 15^th. “This should be increased to 90 days nationwide to allow fish stocks to replenish,” says Rambhau Patil, president of the National Fishermen’s Forum. At the same time, marine sanctuaries must be established in which fishing is prohibited. “Cat fish, Bombay duck and promfret and now rare, and hammerhead sharks are diminishing,” Patil says. Whilst governments around the world have responded to the pressing need to preserve endangered species and habitats on land, existing marine parks account for less than 1% of the world’s oceans. Increasing this percentage is the only way to ensure breeding grounds for fish are maintained and the only way to ensure the livelihoods of fishermen for generations to come.

Of course, it is not simply a problem of production. It is one of consumption. Only by reducing demand – eating less fish, avoiding species like cod and tuna, or cutting it from our diets entirely – can we end the reliance on destructive methods of mass fishing. If we all light a candle, there’ll be no darkness left to curse.

Massachusetts was not won by the Republicans, it was lost by Obama

Yesterday’s big news from the far side of the Atlantic was the loss of one of the safest Democratic seats to Scott Brown, a man who represents possibly everything that should make us very worried about the Republicans. In Ted Kennedy’s former seat, which has been blue since 1952, it was the Democrats’ to lose. And they lost it.

They didn’t lose because their opponent drives a truck, because his daughters were available or because it was, after all, the people’s seat and not Ted Kennedy’s as was far too confidently assumed. By all accounts, it was not the number of Republicans voting which swung it, but the number of independents backing Brown and the number of Democrats staying at home. It might be tempting for observers this side of the pond to blame the unerring potential for American political stupidity in falling behind a resurgent GOP just one year after the worst president in living memory retired to Crawford. Obama’s ratings are now lower than any president since Eisenhower at the same stage. But for all the fire and spittle and mad dog hysteria thrown at him by the likes of Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, the largest part of the blame has to lie with himself.

He is perhaps a victim of the power of his own voice. Obama could probably recount what he had on his toast this morning and turn it into a dazzling charismatic performance that lifts the spirits of the world. But the problem with hot rhetoric is that it does not sit too well with cold pragmatism. Only a fool would have thought Obama’s election meant a fundamental change in the nature of American politics. But he has played too close to the centre to truly capitalise on the yearning for ‘yes we can’. He was never going to appeal to the right in America. But with his lukewarm proposals for reform failing to match up to his lofty words, as speechcraft gets bogged down in statecraft, he is increasingly alienating his left-wing base.

It’s a tragedy for the poor in America that Scott Brown will likely derail even the tiniest table scraps of health care reform that are being thrown to them from Washington. It is a greater tragedy for the poor across the rest of the planet that Obama’s meagre proposals for emissions cuts will fall flat. But it’s a tragedy that Obama has brought on himself. There’s no guarantee that a left-ward swing will prevent him from becoming a one-term president. But at least he could say he tried. At least he could say ‘yes I did’. Because one thing’s for sure. If you sit on the fence, you get splinters.

Guest post by Left Outside

At some point in the late 1950s someone coined the term “Global Warming” when referring to Climate Change, and it has gained tractions since. Global Warming is catchy and easy to visualise, but it is infuriatingly easy for morons – and it is apt to call them morons – to use  any cold snap to pooh pooh the scientific consensus on global warming climate change.

I’ve already pointed out the nonsense of Douglas Carswell. Kindly, AngryMob directs me to the ignorant effluence spouting from Richard Littlejohn:

Ah, say the ‘experts’, there’s a difference between ‘weather’ and ‘climate’. They are forced to resort to semantics to sustain their insistence that the science is settled, even though they are all sitting there shivering like brass monkeys. They’d still cling to their belief in man-made warming if Hell froze over.

The idea that the difference between climate and weather is semantic would be laughable if it weren’t so depressing (Incidentally, if you want a “how to model climate in three easy steps” then please do look at Unity’s post here).

In response AngryMob treats us to the usual combination of ennui and anger that fills all those that have Littlejohn’s column for as long as he has:

So there you have it: the only difference between ‘weather’ and ‘climate’ according to Littlejohn is semantic. I wish everything in life was as simple as Littlejohn makes out, but sadly things are a little more complex than that and the cold weather outside today says nothing about climate change or the climate in general.

However, rather than take issue with Littlejohn I thought I would try something a little more intellectually stimulating and draw attention to something else.

When AngryMob says “the cold weather outside today says nothing about climate change or the climate in general” he is wrong. Now I know this is out of shear frustration with Littlejohn, rather than his considered opinon, but it gives me a little chance to discuss the weather.

And as an Englishman, who wouldn’t leap at that chance?

The below graphic and paragraph are taken from Fish Out of Water on The Daily Kos (H/T Brad DeLong):

Daily Kos: Freak Current Takes Gulf Stream to Greenland: An unprecedented extreme in the northern hemisphere atmospheric circulation has driven a strong direct connecting current between the Gulf Stream and the West Greenland current. The unprecedented negativity of the “Arctic Oscillation” and the strong connection of the Gulf Stream with the Greenland current are exceptional events. More exceptional weather events are predicted with anthropogenic climate change, but this could be a natural variation of weather and currents.

Now all of that doesn’t really make much sense to anyone. The above graphic especially won’t make much sense unless you know how the Gulf Stream is meant to act. For that reason I have included the below graphic.

As you can see, something has gone quite drastically wrong with the North Atlantic.

In recent weeks the low pressure area which normally sits over Iceland has been replaced with a high pressure area. [1]

This means that the warm air we normally get from the Atlantic can’t get here to warm us, and has instead been replaced with altogether more cold air from the Arctic. This causes us to be bitterly cold; -22.3C cold.

But what is interesting is that this atmospheric disturbance has been sat there long enough to begin to shift the Gulf Stream.

This is a big deal as a lot of the reason that London (latitude 51°32′ N) has such a different climate to Moscow (latitude 55°45′ N), is that the Gulf Stream brings us so much warmth.

We really don’t want to fuck with it. The terror on our roads has illustrated exactly how well we cope with weather which is actually adverse rather than just inconvenient.

The high pressure area sitting over Iceland has caused both the change in the Gulf Stream and the change in our normally mild winters. This sort of exceptional weather event is predicted to happen ever more frequently as our climate changes.

So climate change and a general increase in global temperature, leading to a more chaotic weather system, will probably lead to these cold winters happening more and more often. So there you have it, the whole world gets warmer and Britain is destined for cold, frost and rain.

Is it just me or does this seem bloody typical?

[1] The high blood pressure caused by Iceland seems to be entirely coincidental.

Photograph: Yves Herman/Pool/EPA

The world may be getting warmer, but, for one day at least, it looks as if hell is getting colder. What’s that? A piece of good news from Copenhagen? No, my friend, not one piece, but two! Not only is Europe pledging €2.4bn a year to help developing nations cope with the cost of climate change, but Britain and France have called for the introduction of the Tobin tax to fund it.

“To ensure predictable and additional finance in the medium term to 2020 and beyond, we should make use of innovative financing mechanisms, such as the use of revenues from a global financial transactions tax and the reduction of aviation and maritime emissions and the auctioning of national emissions permits,” Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarcozy said in a joint statement.

It’s a handy way to tie up the twin crises of ecology and economy, compensating the poorest nations on Earth – often first in the firing line when it comes to climate change – for our occidental excesses, whilst reigning in the global financial system. The deniers and conspiracy nuts – including those not-quite-so-lefty-lefties at Harry’s Place (is there any low to which they will not sink?) -  are still wringing their hands with glee at climategate, telling us all to stop worrying, but this is, at its heart, a true redistributive measure that any genuine socialist, no matter where they stand on anthropogenic climate change, should welcome.

America, as usual, is dragging her heels. FOX News’ horsemanure of the apocalypse, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity may delude themselves into thinking Obama is a socialist, but on this side of the pond he’s way behind a conservative Frenchman and a cardboard box.

Last month, Guardian journalist and tireless eco activist, George Monbiot, was kind enough to give me half an hour of his time to discuss his dire predictions for the world on the eve of Copenhagen. Understandably, one of the greatest barriers to preventing catestrophic global warming that he identified, was China, which Monbiot described as both the greenest and the dirtiest country on Earth. “Greenest because of its vast investment in alternative energy, but the dirtiest because of its vast investment in coal.” I was very interested, then, to be sent this interview today by Dinah Ruth Gardner from Greenpeace, in which Monbiot elaborates on the China question. Still no sign of that elusive happy news, but he points to a number of potential solutions, including carbon capture and storage, which won’t always sit well with hardened eco warriors. Well worth a read.

It’s that time of year again. The silly season has ended, Parliament is getting ready to return from recess and, with swine flu beginning to look like a fuss about not very much and the worst of the recession said to be over, the British media is beginning to turn its attention to the party conferences. The buzzword this year is cuts. Labour, Tory and Lib Dem alike are at pains to explain how best to slash the country’s budget deficit, walking a tightrope of public expectations over a media circus. Against the fanfare and furore of the big three scrambling to shore up their support, however, there’s one party that often goes overlooked. On the back of their best results in twenty years, the Greens are on the rise and optimistic about their chances. Coming out of their last conference before next year’s general election, I caught up with their leader, Caroline Lucas MEP, and grilled her on the big issues, from the party’s future to their more controversial policies and just why she disagrees with James Lovelock.

“There was a very positive mood at conference, and there’s a great sense of determination within the party,” she says. “We’ve demonstrated pretty conclusively that in some places we can take on the big three.” Re-elected for a third term in the European Parliament in June, Caroline Lucas is widely tipped to be the Green Party’s best chance of winning a seat at the next general election and she now believes they are on the brink of a Westminster breakthrough.

But if the party has learnt anything in its long, hard slog to the spotlight, it’s that optimism is a double-edged sword. Similar predictions were made about a Green breakthrough in Brighton Pavilion in 2005, but despite a strong result, it never materialised. “We’ve made five years’ more progress on the ground since then,” Lucas tells me. “We came first in this year’s Euro-elections, not just in Pavilion, but across all three Brighton and Hove constituencies.” In Brighton Pavilion, the party now has the majority of the councillors and they won a majority of the votes in the most recent local elections. In the Goldsmid by-election in July, Alex Phillips’s convincing win stripped the Conservatives of overall control and tied the Greens with Labour as the second largest party on the council. “Basically, the Brighton Pavilion Green team is stronger than before, much more experienced, and very well organised.”

If Lucas’s predictions are anything to go by, she may not be sitting alone in the House of Commons next year. “It’s certainly possible that the next parliament could include two or even three Green MPs,” she says. “The party’s deputy leader, Adrian Ramsay, is leader of the opposition on Norwich City Council. The Greens hold a total of twenty city and county council seats there, where we held five last time around.” Norwich and Brighton are not the only areas the Greens are targeting however. “In Lewisham Deptford, our candidate, Darren Johnson, is currently the chair of the London Assembly, and he’s widely respected in London, not least in Lewisham, where he’s a borough councillor.” Five years ago, Lewisham Greens had only one councillor. Now they have six. “We have candidates who are leading Green politicians in their communities, with the experience and the vision to make effective MPs,” Lucas says.

Amidst mounting concerns over the economy and the environment, the party has seen a surge of support in recent years. But even with their share of the vote going up by 44%, more than any other party, the Greens failed to achieve their two basic goals at the European elections: to increase their number of MEPs and to stop the BNP. “Those goals were two sides of the same coin – in most cases, for the Greens to win the last seat in a region would serve the purpose of denying it to the BNP,” Lucas points out. “Of course it was extremely frustrating to get within about 1% of trebling our number of seats.” In the North West, where Nick Griffin scraped in by the skin of his teeth, the Green Party’s committed anti-racist campaigner, Peter Cranie, fell short by just 0.3% of the vote. “It’s hard to say what we could have done very differently, other than that more resources would almost certainly have enabled us to win seats in the East, North West, South West and Yorkshire and the Humber. But we gained 1,000 members during the six weeks of our campaign, which provides us with a great foundation for the next elections.”

It has often been said that the only thing holding the party back from mainstream success is the first-past-the-post electoral system. In an interview with The Third Estate just before the Greens gained over 1.3 million votes in the European elections, Peter Tatchell argued that under proportional representation, they could expect to gain as many as 40 MPs. I ask Lucas, whose support for electoral reform has always been as strong as her opposition to fascism, how she would answer those critics who argue that PR would bring about just as many BNP MPs. “If the BNP started winning seats under first-past-the post, would we suspend democracy to stop them getting elected?” she replies. “Of course not. I deplore their racism, ignorance and lies. However, I believe the best way to challenge them is to address the factors which drive individuals to vote for far right parties. If we treat the disease, the symptoms will go away.” Lucas argues that to exclude the BNP from the democratic process would be to set them up as martyrs who can claim the system refuses to deal honestly with the issues that concern their voters. “Some people vote BNP out of racism and intolerance. But probably far more vote for them out of a sense of serious disenchantment with the big three parties. There appears to be so little real difference now between Labour, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems, because they all talk the same and share the same core agenda. A lot of people feel let down by politics, feel their voice isn’t being heard, and some of those people will vote for an extremist party in protest. Inclusive, proportional elections would be one of the ways to help engage people in the political process.”

There was a time when the Greens themselves might have been considered an extremist party. An historic perception of them, the faintest traces of which persist to this day, is of  a single-issue party for beardy organic farmers and firebrand eco-warriors. “The Green Party has never been a single issue party!” argues Lucas. “We’ve always been a party of social justice, and believe that equity has to be at the heart of a sustainable society. We’ve also always made the case that the best way to protect the environment is to transform the goals and direction of the economy to make it genuinely sustainable.” Often, when the media has discussed party policy, it has tended to be linked to environmental stories. Lucas believes this is changing. “We finally seem to be succeeding in getting the media to pay more attention to our economic policies – for instance, with this year’s million-jobs manifesto, geared towards tackling the recession and the climate crisis at the same time. And I hope that in the run-up to the general election, the media will play its part in communicating the alternative political choices on offer, rather than just following the main three party leaders around. Then the differences between the Greens and the big three would become blindingly obvious.” Here that buzzword comes up again. Cuts. “While they talk about cutting services and tightening belts, we’ll be arguing for low-carbon investments that will create jobs, keep tax revenue coming in, and fund frontline services.”

One thing Lucas believes is helping them to better communicate their message is their decision to do away with the old system of a male and female principal speaker. Last year she was overwhelmingly voted the party’s first ever leader. “Most people like to be able to put a face to a political party,” she says. “So I believe that having a single leader with a clear, recognisable presence in the media allows us to communicate more effectively.”

After decades of fighting, the Green Party finally seems to be entering the mainstream. And after decades of dragging their heels, a consensus has emerged amongst world leaders that urgent action is required to tackle climate change. Does it encourage Lucas that the major parties are adopting increasingly environmentalist policies? “I’m not sure which has been more frustrating: the slow progress in this area, or the extent of the greenwash,” she says. “Yes, there’s now a consensus that we need to tackle climate change, and yes, the big three parties do go out of their way to appear green. But so much of this is rhetoric, and even now there is so much more that they should be doing.” Lucas points out that in 1997, Labour claimed to be the first green government, despite their weak climate targets and inadequate policies for meeting them. “Although some progress has been made, even now they still have the wrong targets and inadequate policies for meeting them, and they’re still building roads and expanding airports.”

The Greens have commendably been ahead of the times when it comes to scientific thinking on climate change. They were banging that bongo long before the band joined in. Some of the main criticisms of the party, however, have been for its broader scientific policy, most notably from Frank Swain and Martin Robbins who kicked up a pre-election storm by taking the Greens to task on GM food, embryonic stem cell research and alternative medicine. “Just because the Greens are sceptical about some scientific developments doesn’t make us ‘anti-science,’” Lucas says. “I have yet to see any convincing evidence that GM crops are anything other than unnecessary and damaging – or that many of the forces behind them have anything other than morally dubious motivations.” But what about the argument that, in the right hands, GM can be used to tackle hunger for the poorest people in the world? “When will GM crops be ‘in the right hands’ if they’re developed to increase dependency on the multinationals who own the seed patents? The issue here is about control of the food chain. There’s tremendous potential for greater organic food production, and there’s plenty of evidence that ecologically designed agriculture systems, using permaculture principles for example, can significantly increase the productive capacity of the land.”

Evidence, however, is key to the criticism of Green policy. In a follow-up article, Martin Robbins argues that in seeking to ban GM and embryonic stem cell research, the evidence necessary to ascertain safety can never be produced under a Green Party model. Robbins, who points out that the party believes experiments on human embryos could have harmful unforeseen outcomes, asks how you can ban something on the basis of unknown consequences, particularly when research into embryonic stem cells is vital for treating numerous conditions. I put the issue to Caroline Lucas, who has twice been named Observer Ethical Politician of the Year. “There are no easy answers,” she says. “Personally, I remain concerned about the associated health risks, the commodification of eggs and embryos, and the potential exploitation of women. Increasing research suggests that there are a number of promising alternatives, for example adult stem cell research, and umbilical cord stem cell research. These tell a growing number of success stories, without the problematic issues associated with embryonic stem cell research.”

The third criticism of the party’s scientific policy is its opposition to attempts to regulate alternative medicines. I ask Lucas if a more rigorous approach is needed to unproven remedies. “A balance must always be reached between the right of the individual to free choice, and the duty of society to protect us from the consequences of unwise choices,” she says. “I support the idea of a regulatory agency with responsibility for natural medicines, including nutritional supplements, medicinal plants and herbal remedies, essential oils and homeopathic remedies. I also believe that where people have found such remedies to work well for them, they should be given the freedom to continue taking them.”

If there’s one issue on which the Green Party has never been anything but utterly transparent, however, it’s the pressing need to save the planet from the worst human excesses. “The Green Party’s position is that we must adopt whatever targets are necessary to avert the worst consequences of climate change; to argue for these policies internationally and to lead by example. We believe that the current science demands a 90% UK reduction in greenhouse gases by 2030, with significant year-on-year cuts starting straight away.” Lucas is a strong enthusiast for the 10:10 campaign, launched earlier this month. “We believe there are huge spin-off benefits from emissions-reduction policies, ranging from much better public transport to warmer homes and a more stable economy, along with the creation of hundreds of thousands of new jobs. So a post carbon economy isn’t just possible, it’s highly desirable.”

One area of contention within the party, however, is on the question of nuclear power. James Lovelock, author of the Gaia hypothesis, who points out that global warming is much further advanced than IPCC models and Stern have suggested, has come out in favour of nuclear power as the only green solution in the time we have left. “I find it sad and ironic that the UK, which leads the world in the quality of its Earth and climate scientists, rejects their warnings and advice, and prefers to listen to the Greens,” Lovelock argues. “But I am a Green and I entreat my friends in the movement to drop their wrongheaded objection to nuclear energy.” Wrongheaded or not, Caroline Lucas is not about to drop her objection to nuclear energy anytime soon. “Nuclear power simply won’t deliver big enough emission cuts, fast enough,” she says. “Even if we doubled the amount of nuclear in this country, we would only save about 8% in emissions reductions, and not until 2030 at the earliest. Nuclear is also hugely costly, and carries major safety and security risks. The bottom line is that there are much cheaper, quicker, safer and more effective ways of making bigger reductions – energy efficiency, renewables, decentralised energy, combined heat and power, better public transport – the list goes on.”

Lucas agrees with Lovelock on one thing, however. “Climate change needs to be seen not just as an environmental issue, but as the greatest security threat that we face. We need to put the economy on something like a war footing, and introduce far more urgent action.”

Is it too late to save the world?

“No, I don’t believe that it’s too late, but we definitely need to be taking far more radical action than we currently are if we are to stave off the worst effects of climate change.”

If there’s one person who can convince us to take that action, it’s Caroline Lucas. Parliament magazine MEP of the Year in 2008, recipient of the RSPCA’s Michael Kay Award for outstanding contribution to European animal welfare, one of BBC Wildlife’s top conservationists, Vice President of the European Parliament’s Permanent Delegation to Palestine, and perhaps soon to be MP for Brighton Pavilion, Lucas is certainly hard at work. But if she succeeds, one thing’s for sure. The future’s bright. The future’s Green.

www.greenparty.org.uk

Last weekend saw the 20th annual Waveney Greenpeace Fair. It was a fun day for families filled with hippy arts and crafts, good food, fine ale, decent music and a whole heap of progressive politics. I spent the afternoon serving drinks behind the bar and the evening propping up the bar from the other side. Drinks takings exceeded £7000 and the profits were split between Greenpeace and the Green Party. With over 400 cars turning up at last year’s fair, causing traffic congestion and underminging the event’s environmental credentials, there had been considerable speculation in the local press that this year may have been the last. Thankfully, with good weather, a special bus service and the decision to scrap the entry fee and replace it with a flat rate of £20 per car, thousands of people eager to secure the future of the fair chose to arrive by bike and public transport.

“It was an excellent result,” says the fair’s organiser, Councillor Graham Elliott. “Last weekend showed that we can convince people to make the radical lifestyle changes necessary to save the planet.”