On-line voting opened today in elections for the Green
Party leaders and executive. Green Left asked candidates about
ecosocialism.
What do you understand by
the term “Ecosocialist”? ‘Would you see yourself as being an ecosocialist and
what does that mean to you?
LEADER CANDIDATES
Shahrar Ali
Green socialists, and I
count myself as one, frame and explain policies in terms of their impact on social
justice and environmental well-being. Climate justice would put an end to those
least responsible for the climate change impacts having to most suffer their
horrendous consequences. See my Ted Talk https://bit.ly/2NVbi6J.
Sian Berry (Joint candidate with Bartley)
I joined the Greens in 2001 precisely because we were the
only party making the links between social justice and the need for a healthy
planet, while all the other parties saw these as either/or. This link is at the
core of ecosocialism, while I also admire the focus of most ecosocialists on
local empowerment and action that builds resilience within communities as well
as ‘traditional’ socialist principles like democratic public control of
essential services and industries.
Jonathan
Bartley (joint candidate with Berry)
I don’t see how the need to tackle climate change and the
ravaging of the planet can be separated from the economic system that drives it
and the rampant inequality that results. For me this is what being an
ecosocialist is about and right now is the moment to be shouting loudly about
it. People need more than a choice between Monetarism and Keynesianism. What
Labour is offering is neither radical nor ecosocialist. What we offer should be
clearly different and mean systemic change.
Leslie Rowe
Ecosocialism is Green socialism. Capitalism is the cause
of social exclusion, poverty, war and environmental degradation through
globalisation and imperialism, under repressive states and transnational
structures, such as the EU. That is why I am campaigning for a sustainable
de-growth economic policy and actively oppose neo-liberal economic policies.
DEPUITY LEADER CANDIDATES
Aimee Challenor
For me, Ecosocialist is someone who supports people and
planet through challenging big business and capitalism, making sure that we can
live Free and Equal whilst also having a planet to live on.
Jonathan Chilvers
My understanding: The problems of environmental
degradation and poverty having the common root cause of an exploitative
capitalist system. My comment: I identify more strongly with the cooperative
socialism of the earliest 20thC rather than the top down models that have come
to be synonymous with the word ‘socialist’. Marx still offers the most
devastating critique we have of capitalism, but he’s not that helpful for the
Green Party in setting out a realistic, relevant and radical programme for how
we move towards an economics for a finite planet.
Andrew Cooper
Ecosocialism is a vision of a transformed society in
harmony with nature, and the development of practices that can attain it. It is
directed toward alternatives to all socially and ecologically destructive
systems, such as patriarchy, racism, homophobia and the fossil-fuel based
economy.
I’ve never called myself an ‘Ecosocialist’ though in
conversation with people who do we come to similar conclusions on many
occasions
Rashid Nix
I don’t like jargon. Avoid it like the plague. I am a
Green Party spokesperson who talks the language of everyday people. We must
develop language that includes not excludes. Ecosocialist is more exclusive
language we should avoid. Mankind is in trouble, we need Simple Solutions a 10
year old understands.
Amelia Womack
I am a proud ecosocialist, which has been evidenced by my
work opposing austerity and championing green alternatives that have social
justice at their core. We need to be championing eco-socialist policies not
just in the UK, but on a global basis, working to dismantle capitalism and
challenging globalisation from the perspective that it’s built on the backs of
the working class around the works, destroying our planet, and the effects of
all this feedback with climate change and ecological destruction destroying the
poorest countries and communities first.
