Why the NDP and not the Greens?

Simple answer: for me the problem of environmental destruction and amelioration are tied to matters of wealth and income inequality, and efforts to mitigate the problems with human use of the environment are directly tied to efforts to mitigate inequality. 

So many politico-environmental problems are problems of class.  The logger sees the environmental protester as an urban hippie brat.  The logger has to feed his family, and he has a love/hate relationship with the owner of the mill, who is not only of a higher class, but of such a higher class that the logger depends on him.  The environmental protester, taken out of the context of class, can only see the logger as a source of ruin for the environment, instead of a dependent on the economic process that brought it about.

This is just the most superficial way at which class and environment intersect.  But it in itself is a vital observation.  To me the NDPs approach towards class is more viable and consistent with a long-term view of human relations with the environment than any movement that takes the environment apart from this.

Comments

[Idealistic Pragmatist]

Well-stated, and agreed. This isn't spelled out what I said in my post on the subject, but it's between the lines. :-)

[Mark [Section15]]

This is always an interesting issue.

"...efforts to mitigate the problems with human use of the environment are directly tied to efforts to mitigate inequality"

Perhaps. Certainly capitalism has been proven to have little interest in the environment, and is a largely failed, morally bankrupt economic model. However, I would challenge any notion which argued that successful efforts to mitigate inequality _necessarily_ leads to some sort of enviro-friendly, sustainable economic model.

I guess I'm saying "I need more information here."

"The environmental protester, taken out of the context of class, can only see the logger as a source of ruin for the environment, instead of a dependent on the economic process that brought it about."

I'm not sure how that ties back to the Greens, since they very much view this issue as a economic model problem, with the solution being tied into an eventual abandonment of our rampant consumerist ethos and addiction to a growth-based economic model. A lot of members of the Green party are self-employed, and are quite aware of the troubling relationship we have with destructive forces in our society.

Next, how do we deal with:

I'm low-income, with three dependents. I love coffee. Do I spend $10-15 for a lb. of fair trade coffee, $6 for 1 kg of cheap amoral corporatist coffee (which is all that I can afford), or should I get all moral bite the bullet and quit? Arg!!!!

Sigh. Gotta run.

[Ian Welsh]

I'm inclining more strongly towards the NDP as well, especially at the provincial level. Not to say I don't have my differences with them, but I can live with most of them and I do tend to think that social stratification matters a lot more than most people think it does.

[nkeklpfcya]

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