Green Liberalism - Philosophy

Philosophy

Green liberalism values the Earth very highly, and this philosophy highly values the planet being passed down to the next generation unharmed. Green liberalism accepts that the natural world is a system in a state of flux, and does not seek to conserve the natural world as it is. However, it does seek to minimize the damage done by the human species on the natural world, and to aid the regeneration of damaged areas.

In economic issues, green liberals take a position somewhere between classical liberalism and social liberalism: they may favor slightly less government involvement than do social liberals, but far more than do classical liberals. Some within the circle of green liberals practice free-market environmentalism and thus, sharing similarity with classical liberalism or libertarianism. This is one of a few reasons why a blue-green alliance is possible in politics.

The historian Conrad Russell, a British Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords, dedicated a chapter of his book The Intelligent Person's Guide to Liberalism to the subject of green liberalism. The term "green liberalism" was coined, however, by political philosopher Marcel Wissenburg in - among others - his 1998 book Green Liberalism: The free and the green society.

The Liberal Party of Canada under Stéphane Dion placed the environment at the front of its political agenda, proposing an ecotax and tax shift it called the Green Shift. Similarly, the Liberal Democrats (UK) have proposed a "Green Tax Switch" based around the same ideas.