Groen op 1, sure... maar welke groen?

Regerakoord in hand, a new era opens up in dutch politics. From the six pilars used in the spin of the new governmen (innovatie, concurrentie en ondernemen; duurzame leefomgeving; sociale samenhang; veiligheid, stabiliteit en respect) , one is sustainability. So, at last, we are seeing the moment in which green matters for politics.

Of course, lets all be upset for a moment contemplating the fact that Groenlinks is not part of this government. Femke was right, after all. This cabinet is welcomed as leftier and greener than the previous (Het nieuwe kabinet van CDA, PvdA en ChristenUnie wil „werken aan groei, duurzaamheid, respect en solidariteit". NRC), and we are not needed for that. But hey, that belongs to history now. Lets try to see ahead.

Seeing ahead has been the great added value of the political green movement. Since decades ago we have been saying what today Al Gore is acclaimed for. We can claim success. Not in the power politics, since we are not needed, but in what is more important, the thinking politics. It is possible today, in the light of the government agreement, to claim that our goals as transformers of society has been achieved: sustainability is a relevant part of the political agenda.

So, what now? I can imagine three options. We can dismantle Groenlinks, to start with. Since our goal was to get green in the politics, we won and it's over. Enough Green, then, and let's send a half of our members to the SP, another half to the PvdA, and minorities to the Christen Unie, D66 or even VVD. There is, though, another option. We can go on saying that we, being The Green Party, know better than the other politicians when talking about green. We can poke holes in the current program of government, introduce nice points in the regional elections, maybe even invite Arnold to our meetings, and follow what is today the hype. Guarantee for Better Green will be our motto. And yet we have one option left. We can update ourselves, and try the same movement that Femke succeed in doing with our left-wing ideas. Vrijheid Eerlijk Delen followed up by Eerlijk Groen voor Alles (I thought about Groen NU, or Libertair Groen, but they seems too extreme options).

Not surprisingly my option is the last one. Because I feel a serious problem for us today. I feel that we are left behind. Ask yourself what is the added value of Groenlinks, if a cabinet of the PvdA, CDA and CU is greeted as social and green. Was that not our thing? Are we then needed? Let's not answer that question for now, and let's think what Eerlijk Groen voor Alles might possibly mean. Let's think in a couple of issues.

Begin with population and housing growth. That seems to be the main problem that sustainability faces. How to be friendly with the environment if every second we are more people? I still regret that the congress rejected the idea of creating a new green city, but the way the proposal was moved inside groenlinks was not good. Could we not rethink that proposal, now with discussions in the afdelingen that would be affected? Couldn't we tackle a sacred cow (not only in Groenlinks but in Netherlands) and consider the possibility that the Groene Hart might be once urbanized? Or another sacred cow and consider that without horizontal growth we might need vertical growth? And then get groenlinks developing the idea of “a new skyline for NL”, in which environmentally friendly buildings of hundreds of floors are to be though as new living spaces?

Lets go on with nature as such. I know, it doesn't seem to be a lot of nature left in NL. But then again, why not to recover it aggressively? Imagine groenlinks asking for Rotterdam Harbour be moved into the sea (Dubai style) and recovering the whole area as a nature reserve, starting at the sea line and ending at the Biesbosch. That would probably be the bigger european water reserve. Imagine local afdelingen of groenlinks asking that the water in the channels of any city must be drinkable. Imagine the change of farm culture that such a proyect would imply. Or imagine groenlinks asking for the expropriation of the whole Groene Hart in order to re-create an original european forest. Not only goats and sheeps, but wolves, bears and lynxes, not to mention aurochs and deers.

And for once, let's take serious our cosmopolitan imago, and realize that the real battle against global warming is not fought switching off some of our appliances or commuting from oil to wind power... but protecting the oceans from fishery, and the rain forests from wood extraction and human growth. Lets ask NL first, but then Europe, to play a role in the real biodiversity hotspots, all of them situated today in the third world, and threaten with famine, war or simply human growth.

Who knows, maybe my biologist training blurred my political thinking, and maybe all what I write is politically unacceptable. But the question remains. Is Groenlinks happy with our thinking on green? Or does it need a serious (and according to me, extreme) revision?