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Green

Specialty Definition: Green

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Specialty Definition: Ada programming language

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Ada is a structured, compiled, statically typed programming language, designed by Jean Ichbiah of Cii Honeywell Bull in the 1970s. It is positioned to address much the same tasks as C or C++. Ada was named after Lady Ada Lovelace, the first computer programmer.

Language Features

Ada was originally targeted at embedded and real-time systems, and is still commonly used for those purposes. The Ada 95 revision (designed by Tucker Taft of Intermetrics between 1992 and 1995) improved support for systems, numerical, and financial programming.

Notable features of Ada include Strong typing, run-time checking, parallel processing, exception handling, and genericss. Ada 95 added support for object-oriented programming, including dynamic dispatch.

Ada implementations do not typically use garbage collection for storage management. Ada supports a limited form of region-based storage management which allows some cases of access to unallocated memory to be detected at compile time.

Ada supports run-time checks in order to protect against access to unallocated memory, buffer overflow errors, off by one errors, and other avoidable bugs. These checks can be disabled in the interest of efficiency. It also includes facilities to help program verification. For these reasons, it is very widely used in critical systems like avionics, weapons and spacecraft.

The Ada language definition is unusual among International Organization for Standardization standards in that it is Free content. One effect of this is that the standard document (known as the Reference Manual or RM) is the usual reference resorted to by Ada programmers for technical details, much as many other languages have a standard textbook.

History

In the 1970s, the US Department of Defense was concerned by the number of different programming languages being used for its projects, some of which were proprietary and/or obsolete. In 1975 the Higher Order Language Working Group (HOLWG) was formed with the intent of reducing this number by finding or creating a programming language generally suitable for the department's requirements; the result was Ada. The total number of high-level programming languages in use for such projects fell from over 450 in 1983 to 37 by 1996.

The working group created a series of language requirements documents - the Strawman, Tinman, and Ironman (and later Steelman) documents. Many existing languages were formally reviewed, but the team concluded in 1977 that no existing language met the specifications.

Requests for proposals for a new programming language were issued and four contractors were hired to develop their proposals under the names of Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow. In May of 1979, the Green proposal, designed by Jean Ichbiah at Cii Honeywell Bull, was chosen and given the name Ada. The reference manual was approved on December 10, 1980 (Ada Lovelace's birthday)

The US Department of Defense required the use Ada (the Ada mandate) for every software project where new code was more than 30% of result, though exceptions to this rule were often granted. This requirement was effectively removed in 1997. Similar requirements existed in other North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries.

The language became an ANSI standard in 1983 (ANSI/MIL-STD 1815), and an ISO standard in 1987 (ISO-8652:1987). This version of the language is commonly known as Ada 83, from the date of its adoption by ANSI.

Ada 95, the joint ISO/ANSI standard (ISO-8652:1995) is the latest standard for Ada. It was accepted in February 1995 (making Ada 95 the first ISO standard object-oriented programming language). To help with the standard revision and future acceptance the US Air Force funded the development of the GNAT Compiler.

"Hello, World!" in Ada

A common example of a language's syntax is the Hello world program.

with Ada.Text_Io; use Ada.Text_Io;
procedure Hello is
begin
  Put_Line("Hello World!");
end Hello;

The Ariane 5 Failure

A commonly encountered myth blames the loss of a European Space Agency Ariane 5 rocket on a bug in an Ada program or on disabling Ada's runtime checks. Though range checks and appropriate exception handlers on all type conversions (see e and f below) might have trapped the problem, the problem itself was a design decision to reuse a part and its software from the Ariane 4 rocket without adequate analysis of its suitability (see m and n below) or tests on Ariane 5 data (see r and t below), as described in the Report by the Inquiry Board -

3. CONCLUSIONS

3.1 FINDINGS

The Board reached the following findings:

...

e) At 36.7 seconds after H0 (approx. 30 seconds after lift-off) the computer within the back-up inertial reference system, which was working on stand-by for guidance and attitude control, became inoperative. This was caused by an internal variable related to the horizontal velocity of the launcher exceeding a limit which existed in the software of this computer.

f) Approx. 0.05 seconds later the active inertial reference system, identical to the back-up system in hardware and software, failed for the same reason. Since the back-up inertial system was already inoperative, correct guidance and attitude information could no longer be obtained and loss of the mission was inevitable.

g) As a result of its failure, the active inertial reference system transmitted essentially diagnostic information to the launcher's main computer, where it was interpreted as flight data and used for flight control calculations.

h) On the basis of those calculations the main computer commanded the booster nozzles, and somewhat later the main engine nozzle also, to make a large correction for an attitude deviation that had not occurred.

i) A rapid change of attitude occurred which caused the launcher to disintegrate at 39 seconds after H0 due to aerodynamic forces.

...

m) The inertial reference system of Ariane 5 is essentially common to a system which is presently flying on Ariane 4. The part of the software which caused the interruption in the inertial system computers is used before launch to align the inertial reference system and, in Ariane 4, also to enable a rapid realignment of the system in case of a late hold in the countdown. This realignment function, which does not serve any purpose on Ariane 5, was nevertheless retained for commonality reasons and allowed, as in Ariane 4, to operate for approx. 40 seconds after lift-off.

n) During design of the software of the inertial reference system used for Ariane 4 and Ariane 5, a decision was taken that it was not necessary to protect the inertial system computer from being made inoperative by an excessive value of the variable related to the horizontal velocity, a protection which was provided for several other variables of the alignment software. When taking this design decision, it was not analysed or fully understood which values this particular variable might assume when the alignment software was allowed to operate after lift-off.

o) In Ariane 4 flights using the same type of inertial reference system there has been no such failure because the trajectory during the first 40 seconds of flight is such that the particular variable related to horizontal velocity cannot reach, with an adequate operational margin, a value beyond the limit present in the software.

p) Ariane 5 has a high initial acceleration and a trajectory which leads to a build-up of horizontal velocity which is five times more rapid than for Ariane 4. The higher horizontal velocity of Ariane 5 generated, within the 40-second timeframe, the excessive value which caused the inertial system computers to cease operation.

q) The purpose of the review process, which involves all major partners in the Ariane 5 programme, is to validate design decisions and to obtain flight qualification. In this process, the limitations of the alignment software were not fully analysed and the possible implications of allowing it to continue to function during flight were not realised.

r) The specification of the inertial reference system and the tests performed at equipment level did not specifically include the Ariane 5 trajectory data. Consequently the realignment function was not tested under simulated Ariane 5 flight conditions, and the design error was not discovered.

...

t) Post-flight simulations have been carried out on a computer with software of the inertial reference system and with a simulated environment, including the actual trajectory data from the Ariane 501 flight. These simulations have faithfully reproduced the chain of events leading to the failure of the inertial reference systems.

3.2 CAUSE OF THE FAILURE

The failure of the Ariane 501 was caused by the complete loss of guidance and attitude information 37 seconds after start of the main engine ignition sequence (30 seconds after lift- off). This loss of information was due to specification and design errors in the software of the inertial reference system.

The extensive reviews and tests carried out during the Ariane 5 Development Programme did not include adequate analysis and testing of the inertial reference system or of the complete flight control system, which could have detected the potential failure.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Ada programming language."

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German Green Party

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, the Green Party is a political party in Germany that was founded in the late 1970s as part of the new social movements. It was one of the first successful green parties. Since 1998, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen are part of the coalition government on the national level.

Party symbol of Bündnis 90/Die Grünen

Current Events

The only party convention in 2003 was planned for November 2003, but ca. 20% of the local organisations forced the federal party to held a special party convention early to discuss the party position in regard to the Agenda 2010, a major reform of the German social security systems planned by chancellor Schröder.

The November 2003 party convention was held in Dresden and decided about the election plattform for the 2004 European Parliament elections. The German Green list for these elections is headed by Rebecca Harms (currently leader of the Green parliament party in Lower Saxony) and Daniel Cohn-Bendit, currently Member of the European Parliament for Les Verts. The Greens expect to gain at least 10 seats in the elections. The November 2003 convention is also noted because it was the first convention of a German political party ever using an electronic voting system.

History

1970s: Foundation

In the late 1970s, environmentalists and peace activists organized politically as the Greens (Die Grünen). Opposition to expanded use of nuclear power, to NATO strategy, and to certain aspects of highly industrialized society were principal campaign issues. Important figures in the first party years were amongst others Petra Kelly and Joseph Beuys.

1980s: Parliamentary representation on the federal level

The party first won seats in the Bundestag, the lower house of the German parliament, in 1983; after some success in state level and European parliament elections. The Greens received 8.3% of the vote in the January 1987 West German national election.

1990s: German reunification, fall out of parliament

However, in the December 1990 all-German elections, the Greens in western Germany were not able to clear the 5% hurdle required to win seats in the Bundestag. It was only in the territory of the former GDR that the Greens, in a merger with Bündnis 90 (Alliance 90) (a loose grouping of civil rights activists with diverse political views), were able to clear the 5% hurdle and win Bundestag seats. In 1994, Greens from East and West returned to the Bundestag with 7.3% and 49 seats.

1998-2002: Greens as governing party, first term

In 1998, despite a slight fall in their percentage of the vote (6.7%), the Greens retained 47 seats and joined the federal government for the first time in coalition with the Social Democrats. Joschka Fischer became vice chancellor and foreign minister in the new government, which had two other Green ministers (Andrea Fischer, later Renate Künast, and Jürgen Trittin).

Especially since the party has become part of the governing coalition, there have been many internal struggles between the realpolitik faction within the party and the fundamentalist faction: for example, over allowing the transport of nuclear waste, but also over the internal organization of the party.

Photo taken at 2001 party convention
 

In 2001, the party experienced a crisis as some Green Members of Parliament refused to back the government's plan of sending soldiers to help with the 2001 U.S. Attack on Afghanistan. Chancellor Gerhard Schröder called a vote of confidence, tying it to his strategy on the war. A few Green MPs voted against the government, but not enough to bring the government down.

Photo taken at 2001 party convention
 

2002- :Greens as governing party, second term

In 2002, the Greens increased their total to 55 seats (in a smaller parliament) and 8.6%. Many of the MPs who had voted no confidence had been removed from the party lists. However one such member, Hans-Christian Ströbele, was directly elected to the Bundestag as a constituency representative for the Kreuzberg-Friedrichshain constituency in Berlin, becoming the first-ever Green to achieve this in Germany. The coalition government with the Social Democrats was renewed, with Joschka Fischer as foreign minister, Renate Künast as minister for food and consumer security, and Jürgen Trittin as minister for the environment.

One internal issue in 2002 was a long and old discussion about the question, if members of parliament should be allowed to become members of the party executive. Two party conventions didn't change the party statute. The necessary majority of two thirds wasn't reached by a very small margin. In reaction, former party chairpersons Fritz Kuhn and Claudia Roth who where elected into parliament resigned their executive function. The new chairpersons are former party secretary general Reinhard Bütikofer and former MP Angelika Beer. The party decided to solve this organisational issue by a member referendum which was held in May 2003.

As the result, the member referendum changed the party statute. Now it is allowed to elect members of parliament into two of the six seats of the party executive. Ministers or parliament party still aren't allowed to become members of the party executive. 57 % of all party members voted in the member referendum, with 67 % voting with yes to the change. The referendum was the second member referendum in the history of Bündnis 90/Die Grünen only, the first hold about the question if Greens and former GDR Bündnis 90 should be merged.

Related articles

• Green Party faction (Bundestag)
• Worldwide Green Parties
• Angelika Beer, Reinhard Bütikofer, Joschka Fischer, Petra Kelly, Fritz Kuhn, Renate Künast, Claudia Roth, Jürgen Trittin

• Politics of Germany
• List of political parties in Germany
• Federal Assembly of Germany (Bundestag)

Literature about the German Green Party

• Frankland, E. Gene / Schoonmaker, Donald (1992): Between Protest & Power: The Green Party in Germany. Boulder, San Francisco, Oxford: Westview Press.
• Raschke, Joachim (1993): Die Grünen: Wie sie wurden, was sie sind. Köln: Bund-Verlag.
• Raschke, Joachim (2001): Die Zukunft der Grünen. Frankfurt am Main / New York: Campus.
• Veen, Hans-Joachim / Hoffmann, Jürgen (1992): Die Grünen zu Beginn der neunziger Jahre. Profil und Defizite einer fast etablierten Partei. Bonn / Berlin: Bouvier.
• Wiesenthal, Helmut (2000): "Profilkrise und Funktionswandel. Bündnis 90/Die Grünen auf dem Weg zu einem neuen Selbstverständnis", in Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, B5 2000, S. 22-29.

External links

• Official Homepage of Bündnis 90/Die Grünen with some English language information

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "German Green Party."

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Green

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Green is a color seen commonly in nature. Plants are green because they contain chlorophyll.

Green light has a wavelength of around 550 nm and is one of the additive primary colors.

On a browser that supports visual formatting in Cascading Style Sheets, the following box should appear a shade of green:

Distinguishing "Green" in language

The English language makes a distinction between blue and green, but some languages, such as Tarahumara, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Toki Pona (note: not a natural language), don't have a separate word for green and use either the word for yellow or the word for blue to describe the color. Most of the time, Chinese language has the blue-green distinction, but another word, qing (青 in pinyin: qing1), used most often in premodern Chinese, can mean either "blue" or "green" or, much less frequently, "black", as in xuanqing (玄青 xuan2 qing1).

"Green" as a symbol

The ecology movement uses green because of its common occurrence in nature. Greenpeace, an ecological group, uses green because of its association with life. Those who carry this into the political realm are called "Greens":

There are political parties named the Green Parties in over one hundred countries throughout the world (beginning in Europe, although the Green Party of the United States and many state parties and two prominent provincial parties in Canada - in Ontario and BC have taken root). The more generic term "green party" is used for parties that emphasize environmentalism, but it is increasingly out of favour as the Global Greens have succeeded in uniting almost all such parties under a Global Green Charter.

Green is the traditional color of Islam, likewise because of its association with nature. Muhammad is reliably quoted in a hadith as saying that "water, greenery, and a beautiful face" were three universally good things.

Green is also the color of supporters of Taiwan independence in opposition to the unification leaning pan-blue coalition. The origin of this symbolism comes from Taiwan being a tropical island.

Green also symbolizes go because of its use in traffic signals. It is also the color of informational and directional signs.

In North American stock markets, green is used to denote a rise in stock prices. In East Asian stock markets, green is used to denote a drop in stock prices.

Because of its camouflage properties, green is typically used for the field uniforms for many military services. It is also used as the dress uniform for many land armies and marines.

"Little Green Men" refers to the stereotypical portrayal of extraterrestrials with green skin, antennae and a generally human body plan (but with the number of a certain body part often changed).

Colloquial expressions

• Envy, one of the traditional Seven Deadly Sins is also called the Green-eyed monster. A person suffering therefrom is said to be "green with envy"
  
• Traditionally, someone who works well with plants is said to have a green thumb, or green fingers.
• A new, inexperienced rookie is also known as green, probably from its reference to unripe (i.e. unready, immature) fruit.

People who are red-green colour blind can not distinguish between the two colours. A green is an area of grassyy common land at the centre of a town or village (see village green). A putting green is the area of well-manicured grass surrounding each hole on a golf course. People with Green as their surname include

• Adolph Green
• Al Green
• Keith Green
• Kerri Green
• Roedy Green
• Tom Green

At Stanford University, "Green" means the Cecil H. Green Library.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Green."

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Green alga

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The green algae are the large group of algae from which the embryophytes (higher plants) emerged. As such they form a paraphyletic group, variously included among the Plantae or with the Protista. The green algae include unicellular and colonial flagellates, usually but not always with two flagella per cell, as well as various colonial, coccoid, and filamentous forms. In the Charales, the closest relatives of higher plants, full differentiation of tissues occurs.

Almost all forms have chloroplasts. These contain chlorophylls a and b, giving them a bright green colour, and have stacked thylakoids. They are bound by a double membrane, so presumably were acquired by direct endosymbiosis of cyanobacteria. A number of cyanobacteria show similar pigmentation, but this appears to have arisen more than once, and the chloroplasts of green algae are no longer considered closely related to such forms. The only other groups with primary chloroplasts are the red algae and glaucophytes, and it may be that the green algae share a common origin with them. The euglenids and chlorarachniophytes also have green chloroplasts, which were presumably acquired from ingested green algae, in the latter case retaining a vestigial nucleus (nucleomorph).

All green algae have mitochondria with flat cristae. When present flagella are typically anchored by a cross-shaped system of microtubules, but these are absent among the higher plants and charophytes. They usually have cell walls containing cellulose, and undergo open mitosis without centrioles. Sexual reproduction varies from fusion of identical cells (isogamy) to fertilization of a large non-motile cell by a smaller motile one (oogamy). However, these traits show some variation, most notably among the basal green algae, called prasinophytes. The remaining forms are usually classified as follows:

• Chlorophyta
  • Chlorophyceae
  • Ulvophyceae
  • Trebouxiophyceae
• Chlorokybales
• Klebsormidiales
• Zygnematales
• Desmidales
• Coleochaetales
• Charales (stoneworts)

The orders outside the Chlorophyta are often grouped as the division Charophyta, which is paraphyletic to higher plants, together comprising the Streptophyta. Sometimes the Charophyta is restricted to the Charales, and a division Gamophyta is introduced for the Zygnematales and Desmidales. In older systems the Chlorophyta may be taken to include all the green algae, but taken as above they appear to form a monophyletic group.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Green alga."

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Green economics

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Green economics loosely defines a theory of economics by which an economy is considered to be component of the ecosystem in which it resides. A holistic approch to the subject is typical, such that economic ideas are commingled with any number of other subjects, depending on the particular theorist. Proponents of feminism, postmodernism, the ecology movement, peace movement, Green Political movements, green anarchism and the anti-globalization movement have used the term to describe very different ideas. Accordingly, green economics has been viewed as external to mainstream economics, although there are varying degrees of diffusion and debate on what are the points of contention. It is thus preferable to refer to a loose school of "green economists" rather than any single "green economics".

Green is post-neoclassical

Neoclassical economics represents the main body of modern economics. Neoclassical economists begin with a strict set of assumptions that enable a mathematical treatment of the subject. An unintended consequence of the normal assumptions is to exclude the evolution of a system, including moral or inherited and evolving preferences from analysis. Due to these exclusions, neo-classical economics is almost antithetical to life. The greens are often confused both with political Greens and with advocates of "more mainstream" environmental economics that does not question the neoclassical political economy of global market capitalism - and heavily exploits the neoclassical methods in its subfields environmental finance, Natural Capitalism, measuring well-being and sustainable development.

The green economists share broader ecological and social concerns with capitalism itself. - and seek a new political economy entirely, with one commonly shared objective being to reform instruments of money supply, aligning inflation rates (which set the value of money itself) to ecological and social criteria to overcome "the three deficits: environment, social, and financial."

Tendencies and factions

Various subgroups of these economists avoid the label green or Green in part to avoid association with political Green Parties and their broader goals. Often these use the older terms environmental economics or resource economics which emphasized the now-mainstream goal of economic sustainability and treating so-called "natural resources" as full "natural capital".

This article covers those who have extended this analysis or reject measures of global "sustainability" - few of whom now use the older terms or accept Natural Capitalism. Those who focus clearly and only on sustainability are a distinct group concerned with environmental finance - the use of financial instruments to set up incentives to save ecology, especially endangered species or fragile ecoregions.

What differentiates all green from labor economists is the insistence on treating natural living systems, including the human body, as factors of production, and clearly differentiating these from any non-living factors. A common characterization is that greens distinguish "factors from actors":

Life versus not

Indeed, what seems to define green economists most clearly is the rejection of all analyses of factors of production or means of production that fail to clearly and fundamentally distinguish between living (nature, persons)and non-living (financial, social, instructional, infrastructural) roles in a productive process. Some have detailed critiques of "Fordism" (after Henry Ford) and "productivism", as best developed by Alain Lipietz of the French Greens. They characterize the belief in such concepts as "economic growth" as a delusion, an ideology, and worse, as they disrupt and destroy ecological growth in life support capacity of a natural ecosystem: air and water filtering, food production, fiber growth. These often characterize their work as "social ecology" and may employ the Marxist analysis of means of production.

However, there is an equally-strong strain of "right greens" who emphasize the role of tax, trade, and tariff laws in encouraging destructive behavior - they often characterize "dirty subsidy" or "dirty money" as the problem - and seek to change banking rather than social values.

Ecologies produce, people create, local is more reliable

Three assumptions that seem to be universal among green economists are:

1. That living ecoregions are better valued as service-producing natural capital than as passive natural resources.
2. That creative "enterprise" or individual capital must be differentiated from more general ideas or analyses of human capital or human resources, as what characterizes both evolution and intelligence is an unpredictable and creative movement towards greater energy economy, e.g. a tree spans a volume so as to most effectively convert available light to energy using its leaves.
3. That local measurements are almost always better than global ones, and scale of measures must match the scale of the commons being managed.

Small is beautiful

Of these three assumptions, the third is the oldest, and was first codified clearly in E. F. Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful". It emphasized the value of a local point of view, like that of gardening, that would require "use-value" or "service value" to be assessed in context of a living ecoregion or economic process, and would de-emphasize the value of resource, commodity or product measures. In addition many de-emphasize protest, notably Brian Milani who has contributed significantly to a green micro-economics, e.g. of eco-villages, and notes that "efforts to encourage nature appreciation and environmental protection often reinforce the chasm between the human economy and non-human nature."

He argues that "The environmental movement in particular should put more emphasis on establishing an educational network that both formalizes its educational tasks and systemizes connections with the rest of the community. But this, of course, assumes that the environmental movement becomes more aware of, and proactive about, economic alternatives."

This bottom-up approach seems to mirror that which successfully promoted the emotionalist moral philosophy of Adam Smith and the classical economists, "that eventually caused fundamental changes in politics, culture, religion, and conceptions of human nature." A revolution not of politicians and theorists, but of gardeners, shop-keepers, and purchasers.

Can green go global?

At the other scale extreme is the view of Goldsmith, that scientific understanding of human bodies, cognition, and Earth's ecology, constitutes "a single order" and "a single set of laws, whose generalities apply equally well to biological organisms, vernacular societies and ecosystems and to Gaia herself." Such views seem to inspire the Global Greens who believe that centralized measurements can perhaps be reformed, in line with a general ethic that emphasizes "Earth First" (the name of one influential NGO) and social and economic measurements as only secondary.

This "recognition that economy is nested within society which is nested within ecology, and that ecological flows (e.g. watersheds, air flows, gene flows) determine political power and bodily service relationships" is seen as pivotal by other greens who see The Enlightenment as being over, and a new movement, The Embodiment, replacing it on a cultural level.

Can green fight global?

This is a common theme among Greens in general, who have a broad critique of dominator culture and monoculture which has flowered in the anti-globalization movement to unite with other critics of global capitalism.

Some, following systems biology, differentiate "between Plant (energy-binding), Animal (space-binding), Human (time-binding) and Truth-binding mechanisms" among which they variously count religion, banking, capitalism and economics itself. Whether greens will ever agree on a single "truth-binding" political economy remains a matter of controversy.

Biology versus buying

There is, as yet, no clear agreement between greens even on basic terms of reference. Difficulty of measuring diverse "ecological flows" makes the field also diverse. It is generally impossible to distinguish green economists, ecology theorists and systems theorists, as the green analysis deliberately uses metaphors from natural capital to describe or design infrastructural capital, i.e. employing biomimicry in the broadest sense. A good summary of attitudes is that of Lynn Margulis who holds that ethics, economics, and biology are indistinguishable, and that all three apply to any study of ecology: "economists study the way that humans make a living, and biologists study how all other species make a living."

She also claims that certain tenets of biology are incompatible with ecology: Darwinian evolution "is totally wrong. It's wrong like infectious medicine was wrong before Pasteur. It's wrong like phrenology is wrong. Every major tenet of it is wrong," she writes, in Kevin Kelly's book "Out of Control : The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World".

Green economists vary drastically in how much they question conventional biology and ethics, how reliant they are on cognitive science as a neutral point of view for their micro-economics of human purchasing. Most however are committed to "moral purchasing" regimes that generally deny the value of nation-states or corporations to diffuse responsibility for moral harms done by one's consumption and purchase habits.

Value of life

One holy grail of green economists is a theory of why humans see value in such commodities as gold, and why they habitually reward social and sexual fitness (i.e. appearances) strongly over ecological fitness (i.e. energy efficiency, survival) whenever they have the luxury to build complex financial systems. This parallels and opposes the ambition of neoclassical economics to find parallels in radically autonomous physics and chemistry - but the two views are complementary, and come together in such doctrines as Natural Capitalism, which seems to reflect both green and neoclassical constraints.

A less ambitious field is environmental finance which seeks to justify biodiversity directly as a unit of stored value, e.g. a rainforest standard replace the gold standard. Some refer to this as a "biosecurity standard" or "biosafety standard" of value, but these are not yet common usage - instead a broad strategy of using conventional financial instruments to save ecology deemed unique or irreplaceable has developed, without any agreement on any one standard of biodiversity's value.

Are humans infinitely precious?

However, some of these ambitions parallel and oppose the ambition of labor economics, the United Religions Initiative, generic global ethics and humanism to place an infinitely high value on human life - and thus, as the greens see it, a constantly-decreasing value on other life.

Indeed, a dramatic fact highlighted by the IPCC is that a human life in developed nations is valued 15x higher than in the developing nations - measured strictly in terms of ability to pay to prevent global climate change. Most political Greens reject such an analysis as hopelessly unsustainable given modern terrorism and asymmetric warfare, but what seems to characterize green economists as a class is a willingness to work with such outrageous commodifying assumptions.

In effect, humans cannot be treated differently from Great Apes or whales or any other keystone species, for the green analysis to have integrity. As with other species, society must then set a finite value on what it will do to avoid losing a human life. Otherwise, humans seeking survival at all costs in ever-growing numbers must ultimate overcome sustainability on all levels and cannibalize the Earth's natural capital into "resources". This constraint of "sustainability" has become important to other economists who seem unwilling or unable to deal with limits it imposes.

Influences and opponents

Important economists and systems theorists who have contributed analyses to the body of green economics include E. F. Schumacher, Robert Costanza, Lynn Margulis, David Korten, Buckminster Fuller, Herman Daly, Donella Meadows, Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, Hunter Lovins, Brian Milani, Marilyn Waring, Jane Jacobs, Robin Hanson and Amartya Sen. Some of these are more associated with anarchism or libertarianism but any green theory generally favors all "local measures" over "global measures", so the affinity is inevitable. Local measurement of ecological conditions and integrity replacing trust in centralized institutions (such as the IMF, World Bank, WTO, BIS, WIPO or UN) is a key green theme.

There are also a significant number of ethicists, scientists (particularly linguists and complexity theorists), political scientists, postmodernists and journalists whose work has contributed to a broad green political economy. The list includes Edward O. Wilson, George Lakoff, Rushworth Kidder, Peter Singer, Alain Lipietz, Amos Tversky, Daniel Kahneman, Jean Baudrillard, Carol Moore, Liane Gabora, Richard Thaler, Robert Mundell, and others whose behavioral finance, cognitive psychology, cognitive science and chaos theory have helped to trace out the limits of predictable process.

Robin Hahnel and Michael Albert have attempted to define a restricted, purely economic model which does not contain any mechanisms for dealing with ecological issues, but are hopeful that others may extend the model to deal with ecological issues. A debate attempting to clarify how this model, the participatory economics model, relates to the "social ecology" model, is linked below.

External Links

• "Beyond Environmental Protection", Brian Milani, 2001
• Eco-Village network of the Americas
• "Living Ecologically" topics
• Scientists for Global Responsibility
• Emotionalist Moral Philosophy
• Global Commons Institute
• critique of centralism
• Global Resource Bank
• Goldsmith and his Gaian hierarchy
• "The Embodiment" trends list - note trend 4
• "A Tale of Two Botanies" - Lovins and Lovins
• Genesis of Eden Diversity encyclopedia
• Debate to disentangle Participatory Economics and Social Ecology

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Green economics."

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Green movement

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The Green movement encompasses the Green parties and the larger ecology movement, peace movement, conservation movement, environmental movement and general trend towards environmentalism of which they are a part - the most extreme members of which are sometimes called Gaians or terrists. A more mainstream term for a member of all of these movements is political ecologist, which is used especially in Europe and academic circles.

Not all political ecologists or "Greens" are necessarily active in parties or Green politics. Many Greens disdain electoral politics as a matter of conscience, refusing to participate in violent processes of defining and enforcing laws. These often make reference to the nonviolence ideals of Mohandas Gandhi, although in historical fact Gandhi was actively involved in party politics his whole life.

Greens also often support traditional "left" socialist or "right" capitalist parties as part of a Red-Green Alliance or Blue-Green Alliance or to achieve some tactical purpose. For example, in the 2000 US election some Movement Greens started "Greens for Gore" to support then-US Vice President Al Gore of the United States Democratic Party against US Green Ralph Nader, who threatened to "split the vote" and elect opponent George W. Bush, whose views Greens saw as incompatible with environmentalism.

A range of views from Natural Capitalism to those of the Gaians span the left-right spectrum - which many Greens claim does not apply to them or their long-term "seven generation" perspective. Critics claim that Greens who do not commit to Green parties are pursuing short-term goals. Others claim that those who do are simple opportunists avoiding the necessity of aligning themselves with a specific interest group of voters, and pursing single-issue politics. As with everything in politics, any decision is wrong, but not making a decision is also wrong.

There is no single test or metric to determine who is or is not a member of the Green movement, but most Greens would agree that the Four Pillars originally defined by European Green Parties form the basis of unity on which Greens base their ecological consensus process, and which have been adopted elsewhere especially in the peace movement.

Some think that Green movement ideals converge to a degree with religious thought, e.g. Buddhism, some strains of Catholicism including Thomas Berry's views, and modern Islamic philosophy of al-Faruqi and Nasr. Reconciling these with the Green ideal of feminism is a problem, but there is much similarity, e.g. between Islamic economics and Green economics. These movements all agree that ethics must subordinate the scientific method where the latter is likely to lead to dangerous changes, i.e. the Precautionary Principle applies even to the most basic research.

See also: Greenpeace

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Green movement."

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Green party

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

A (generic or 'small-g') green party is any contemporary political movement which springs out of concern for the destruction of ecosystems - "environmentalism", and then broadened to encompass the whole spectrum of political issues, attempting to implement a "paradigm shift" in how human beings relate to each other and their ecosystems. The term green party is used to describe political parties that emphasize those concerns, including especially the co-operating Green parties in all countries of the developed world.

As with all such self-descriptive terms, whether the term is accurate or deceptive is itself a political question. The term "green" is heavily appropriated by politicians and marketers, even used as a verb--it's not uncommon to hear of "greening" a party or a candidate, or 'small-g greens'. Typically these do not support the Green parties in all particulars, but are movements or factions within existing or established political parties.

When did it begin? In March 1972 the world's very first green party (the United Tasmania Group) was formed at a public meeting in Hobart, Australia. At about that same time, in Atlantic Canada, 'the Small party' was formed with similar goals. In May 1972 a meeting at Victoria University, Wellington New Zealand, launched the Values Party, the world's first national Green party. The term 'Green' was first coined by the German Greens when they contested their first national level election in 1980. The values of these early movements were gradually codified into those of today's worldwide Green parties.

The distinction is very often made between "green parties" (generally spelled in lowercase) in this general sense of emphasizing environmentalism, and specific organized political parties with the name "Green Party" (capitalized) that have grown up around a statement of principles called the Four Pillars and the Green Party consensus process built on them.

The four pillars or four principles are:

• Ecology - ecological sustainability
• Justice - social responsibility
• Democracy - appropriate decision-making
• Peace - non-violence

There are Green Parties in hundreds of countries around the world, and Green representation at national, regional and local levels. Links to all the Green Parties around the world can be found at www.greens.org.

The main difference between a Green Party and a 'generic or small-g' green party is that the former, in addition to environmentalism, also stress social justice and global peace goals. See Worldwide green parties for further discussion of these parties.

The organized Green Parties themselves may disagree with the distinction between "green party" and "Green Party", as many Greens argue that there is no respect for nature without peace, and no viable peace without thriving ecoregions. In other words, they claim that every truly green party will by necessity also subscribe to the Green Party tenets. Some Greens view the compromises of other political parties as dishonest, inherently unethical, as they fail to respect

In 2001, delegates for green parties from 70 countries decided upon a Global Greens Charter which proposes six key principles.

See also

• Worldwide green parties
• Global Greens Charter

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Green party."

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Green Party of England and Wales

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The Green Party of England and Wales was formed in 1973 as the Ecology Party. Its aims were initially solely environmental, but the party now has a broader platform of policies. It changed its name to the Green Party in the 1980s.

The party enjoyed a brief spell of success in the late 1980s. At the 1989 European Elections the Green Party won 2 million votes, and received 15% of the overall vote. Mainstream political parties, alarmed by this success, adopted some "Green policies" in an attempt to counter the threat.

However due to internal divisions over the direction of the party in the early 1990s, the green party fell out of the limelight and failed to maintain its electoral momentum.

Due to this the party has not been able to repeat the successes it achieved in the 1980s, nor has it been able to match the success of Green parties in some other parts of Western Europe. Britain's first-past-the-post electoral system has often been blamed for this.

The Scottish wing of the party split to form the Scottish Green Party in 1996, which has members in the Scottish Parliament. The England and Wales wing of the party then adopted the current name. The has achieved some localised success, as is outlined below.

At the time of writing (January 2003), the Green Party has not yet succeeded in returning Members of Parliament - which must win under first-past-the-post - but it has about 40 local councillors elected. The recent introduction of proportional representation for European elections means that it has two elected Members of the European Parliament (MEPs.) Also elected by proportional representation is the London Assembly. It has three Green Party members, out of 25. The Green Party of England and Wales has one (unelected) member of the (unelected) House of Lords, the Upper Chamber of Parliament, Lord Beaumont.

See also

• British politics
• European Federation of Green Parties

External Link

• The Green Party of England and Wales

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Green Party of England and Wales."

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Green Party of Switzerland

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The Green Party of Switzerland (Grüne Partei der Schweiz / Les verts - Parti écologiste suisse) is the fifth-largest party in the National Council of Switzerland and the biggest party besides the governing parties.

Political basics of the Green Party of Switzerland

The Swiss Greens have adopted the motto: Think global, act local. Their vision is a human livelyhood for all humans in an intact environment. To reach this vision, the Swiss Greens work for sustainable development, environmentalism and human rights. Key criteria for their politics are:

• long-term thinking,
• quality,
• solidarity,
• decentralisation and
• diversity.

History

The first Green party in Switzerland was founded as a local party in 1971 in the town of Neuenburg. In 1979 Daniel Brélaz was elected to the National Council as the first green parliamentarian on the national level. Local and regional green parties and organisations were founded in many different towns and states in the following years.

In 1983, two different national green party federations were created: in May, diverse local green groups come together in Fribourg to form the Federation of Green Parties of Switzerland, and in June, left-alternativ groups form in Bern the Green Alternative Party of Switzerland. In 1990, an attempt to fuse both organisations doesn't succed. In the end, some member groups of the Green Alternative Party join the now so-called Green Party of Switzerland, which becomes the de-facto national green party.

In 1986 the first two Green members of a state government are chosen: Leni Robert and Benjamin Hofstetter become members of the Regierungsrat of Bern.

In 1987, the Green Party of Switzerland joins the European Federation of Green Parties.

In the 1990s, members of the Green Party become town majors, members of the high court and even president of a state government (Verena Diener in 1999).

Elections

Green Members of the National Council

• 1979 - 1 member
• 1983 - 4 members
• 1987 - 11 members, forming the fifth-largest faction
• 1991 - 14 members
• 1995 - 9 members (+ 2 other councilors joining the green faction)
• 1999 - 9 members (+ 1 other councilor)
• 2003 - 14 members

See also: List of political parties in Switzerland

External link

• Homepage of the Green Party of Switzerland (German/French)

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Green Party of Switzerland."

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Green politics

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Green politics is considered by its advocates to be an alternative to both left and right views and parties, although adherents to both views tend to view Greens as "on the other side". These views are complex and contradictory, but certainly it is true that Green parties advocate measures that appear to conventional politicians to appeal to, or repel, different groups than those conventionally grouped into "left" (or "labour") and "right" (or "capital") by economic interests.

Some of these views include:

• a commitment to the methods of consensus decision making, participatory democracy and deliberative democracy wherever feasible
• a green tax shift that would increase consumption and sales taxes on all resource-intensive items, while reducing income tax and capital gains tax - a position also associated with Libertarianism and seen as extreme even by "the right"
• a cessation of all taxes levied against strictly local production and trade - a position shared only by some advocates of Libertarianism
• local and moral purchasing provisions for government especially, requiring the source of supply to follow similar environmental and labour standards as those prevailing in the consuming jurisdiction - a position usually associated with liberal religious groups, pacifists, and left-feminism
• measuring well-being as an alternative to consumer price index based means of measuring economic growth - seen also as an extreme left position especially as it would impact the money supply and measures of inflation.
• full cost accounting and an end to dirty subsidy of pollution by government - another extreme right position, ending corporate welfare and requiring corporations to compete on the basis of energy and waste savings.
• an end to biological forms of pollution and human health damage via the subsidy of dairy farming and the meat industry - a position that cuts against the tendency of both left and right to support family farms without limit or conditions
• treating waste as a resource - a commodification of something often seen as public, and thus a right-wing view
• investing heavily in human capital - usually a left wing position when done by the public sector, and a right wing one if the investment is via the private sector
• accounting reform that would probably disadvantage both labour and large investors in favor of small investors, customers, and the public at large - more of a left wing position but not considered as a key issue by most left parties
• an end to the War on Drugs in the United States and Europe - seen as an extreme left wing but also a Libertarian position.
• an end to the War on Terrorism and the curtailment of civil rights - focusing instead on growing deliberative democracy in war-torn regions and the consturction of a civil society with an increased role for women - this position is seen by most as an extreme left-wing position, and perhaps as naive.
• urban secession by major cities to permit them to shake off control of the suburbs and renew their economies in ways that they cannot do if they require the permission of their surrounding regions, e.g. to tax, ban cars in downtowns, or put money in mass transit instead of highways - this view is usually more associated with Libertarianism and extreme decentralization movements of both left and right.
• bioregional democracy reflecting ecological boundaries in politics directly - a scale which tends to be smaller than existing nation-states, and thus is a de facto secession movement, favored more by left than right in modern times, although historically the right wing was often defined by ethnic and tribal identities.

Because it lacks clear identification with powerful interest groups, and tends to appeal more to a world-view or mindset, Green politics tends to grow slowly but also not to easily lose ground to other views or parties over time. In developed nations Greens have typically stood at 3-12% of the vote for long periods of time without making breakthroughs, usually participating in government as a minority partner, or working at municipal or regional levels.

Basic statements of Green political values include the Four Pillars of the Green Party originally adopted by the European Greens, the Ten Key Values of the Global Greens adopted by most English-speaking Greens in the 1990s, and the six core Green principles accepted in 2001.

Greens often refer to productivism, consumerism and scientism as examples of "grey" views, which implies age, ashphalt and obsolete ideas of human social organization, including globalization of economic relations. Many Greens are important players in the anti-globalization movement. This involvement includes the full spectrum from street protesters to those building local alternatives to global economic monoculture.

Green politics is usually said to include the green anarchism, eco-anarchism, anti-nuclear and peace movements - although these often claim not to be aligned with any party. Some claim it also includes feminism, pacifism and the animal rights movements. Most Greens support special policy measures to enable women especially mothers, to oppose war and de-escalate conflicts and stop proliferating technologies useful in conflict or likely to lead to conflict, and such unusual measures as Great Ape personhood to end ape genocide, which they see as akin to genocide of primitive human populations, e.g. Stone Age Amazon tribes.

External links

Global Greens Charter, Canberra 2001

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Green politics."

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Green River

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The Green River is a river in the state of Washington. It empties into Elliott Bay in Seattle, having changed names to the Duwamish River before entering Tukwila. Its industrialized estuary is known as the Duwamish Waterway.

The Green River provides drinking water for the city of Tacoma.

The Green River is also infamous as the place of the Green River Killings. Gary Ridgway admitted to having killed 48 women around the area, dumping some bodies in the river, others nearby and taking two to Portland, Oregon.

The Green River is a tributary of the Colorado River that flows through the states of Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah.

The Green River is a tributary of the Ohio River that flows northwestward from north central Tennessee through south central and western Kentucky.

Green River were an influential Seattle band in the 1980s, named after the Green River Killer. They were one of, if not the, first grunge bands.

Green River is a soft drink produced by the Clover Club Bottling Corp. of Chicago. Ingredients: carbonated water, high fructose corn sweetener, citric acid, natural lime oils, yellow #5, and blue #1.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Green River."

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Green Sandpiper

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Green Sandpiper
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Charadriiformes Family: Scolopacidae Genus: Tringa Species: ochropus
Binomial name
Tringa ochropus

The Green Sandpiper, Tringa ochropus, is a small wader. It breeds across subarctic Europe and Asia. It is a migratory bird, wintering in southern Europe and Asia, and tropical Africa.

This is not a gregarious species, although sometimes small numbers congregate in suitable feeding areas. Green Sandpiper is very much a bird of fresh water, and is often found in sites too restricted for other waders, which tend to like a clear all-round view.

This species is a dumpy wader with a dark green back, greyish head and breast and otherwise white underparts. The back is spotted white to varying extents, being maximal in the breeding adult, and less in winter and young birds. The legs and short bill are both dark green.

It is obvious in flight, with wings dark above and below, and a brilliant white rump. The latter feature distinguishes it from the slightly smaller but otherwise very similar Solitary Sandpiper of North America to which it is closely related.In flight it has a characteristic three-note whistle

Green Sandpiper lays 2-4 eggs in an old tree nest of another species, such as a Fieldfare. The eggs take about three weeks to hatch.

Food is small invertebrate items picked off the mud as this species works steadily around the edges of its chosen pond.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Green Sandpiper."

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Green screen

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Green screen was the common name for a monochrome CRT computer display using a green phosphor based coating. They succeeded teletype terminals and preceded colour CRTs as the predominant visual output device for computers. They were abundant in the early-to-mid-1980s.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Green screen."

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Green tea

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Green tea is tea that has undergone minimal oxidation during processing. Green tea is popular in China and Japan, and recently has become more popular in the West, which traditionally drank only black tea.

A number of health claims have been made for green tea, claiming that its polyphenol content has antioxidant properties that can help prevent cancer.

According to the U.S. National Cancer Institute, in laboratory studies using animals, catechins scavenged oxidants before cell damage occurred, reduced the number and size of tumors, and inhibited the growth of cancer cells. However, human studies have proven more contradictory, perhaps due to such factors as variances in diet, environments, and populations.

See also:

• Japanese tea ceremony
• Chinese tea culture

External links

• http://www.cancer.gov/newscenter/pressreleases/tea
• http://www.healthfinder.gov/news/newsstory.asp?docID=507999

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Green tea."

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Green Township, Hamilton County, Ohio

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Green Township is a township located in west centrk Hamilton County, Ohio. As of 2000, the total population is 55,660, and the area remaining as unncorporated township is 27.9 mi².

History

The township was originally held intact by John Cleves Symmes, with the apparent intent of naming it as the academy township for his purchase. In 1802 a court order awarded half the township to one of his Miami company invetors, Elias Boudinot. This became part of the disputes over the entire Symmes Purchase.

Geography

The township occupies gently rolling hills above the Ohio river basin, and northwest of downtown Cincinnati. As of 1990, over 50% of the township's area has been was converted to urban use, largely as a suburb of Cincinnati; 38% is classed as forrested, and 11% as farmland.

Adjacent Districts

• Colerain Township, north
• Cincinnati and Cheviot, east
• Delhi Township, south
• Miami Township, west

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Green Township, Hamilton County, Ohio."

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Green, Kansas

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Green is a city located in Clay County, Kansas. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 147.

Geography

Green is located at 39°25'49" North, 96°59'57" West (39.430247, -96.999195)¹. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 0.5 km² (0.2 mi²). 0.5 km² (0.2 mi²) of it is land and none of it is covered by water.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there are 147 people, 58 households, and 41 families residing in the city. The population density is 283.8/km² (752.8/mi²). There are 71 housing units at an average density of 137.1/km² (363.6/mi²). The racial makeup of the city is 96.60% White, 0.68% African American, 2.72% Native American, 0.00% Asian, 0.00% Pacific Islander, 0.00% from other races, and 0.00% from two or more races. 1.36% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race. There are 58 households out of which 41.4% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 50.0% are married couples living together, 13.8% have a female householder with no husband present, and 29.3% are non-families. 24.1% of all households are made up of individuals and 10.3% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.53 and the average family size is 3.05. In the city the population is spread out with 34.0% under the age of 18, 8.2% from 18 to 24, 29.3% from 25 to 44, 19.0% from 45 to 64, and 9.5% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 30 years. For every 100 females there are 96.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 98.0 males. The median income for a household in the city is $27,083, and the median income for a family is $29,167. Males have a median income of $21,750 versus $27,500 for females. The per capita income for the city is $11,171. 4.4% of the population and 5.3% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total people living in poverty, 5.6% are under the age of 18 and 0.0% are 65 or older.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Green, Kansas."

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Green, Ohio

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Green is a city located in Summit County, Ohio. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 22,817.

Geography

Green is located at 40°57'24" North, 81°28'52" West (40.956719, -81.481218)¹. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 86.8 km² (33.5 mi²). 83.0 km² (32.1 mi²) of it is land and 3.8 km² (1.5 mi²) of it is water. The total area is 4.38% water.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there are 22,817 people, 8,742 households, and 6,425 families residing in the city. The population density is 274.8/km² (711.7/mi²). There are 9,180 housing units at an average density of 110.6/km² (286.3/mi²). The racial makeup of the city is 97.52% White, 0.72% African American, 0.15% Native American, 0.78% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 0.12% from other races, and 0.69% from two or more races. 0.49% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race. There are 8,742 households out of which 34.2% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 61.3% are married couples living together, 8.9% have a female householder with no husband present, and 26.5% are non-families. 22.1% of all households are made up of individuals and 7.9% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.59 and the average family size is 3.05. In the city the population is spread out with 26.1% under the age of 18, 6.7% from 18 to 24, 28.5% from 25 to 44, 26.2% from 45 to 64, and 12.6% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 39 years. For every 100 females there are 97.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 94.0 males. The median income for a household in the city is $54,133, and the median income for a family is $61,662. Males have a median income of $45,456 versus $28,725 for females. The per capita income for the city is $25,575. 5.0% of the population and 4.2% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total people living in poverty, 7.5% are under the age of 18 and 4.7% are 65 or older.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Green, Ohio."

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Green, Oregon

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Green is a town located in Douglas County, Oregon. As of the 2000 census, the town had a total population of 6,174.

Geography

Green is located at 43°9'8" North, 123°23'0" West (43.152220, -123.383420)¹. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 12.2 km² (4.7 mi²). 11.8 km² (4.6 mi²) of it is land and 0.4 km² (0.2 mi²) of it is water. The total area is 3.61% water.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there are 6,174 people, 2,197 households, and 1,718 families residing in the town. The population density is 523.9/km² (1,358.1/mi²). There are 2,350 housing units at an average density of 199.4/km² (516.9/mi²). The racial makeup of the town is 93.94% White, 0.16% African American, 1.20% Native American, 0.50% Asian, 0.13% Pacific Islander, 1.57% from other races, and 2.49% from two or more races. 4.41% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race. There are 2,197 households out of which 39.5% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 59.7% are married couples living together, 13.5% have a female householder with no husband present, and 21.8% are non-families. 17.9% of all households are made up of individuals and 6.4% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.79 and the average family size is 3.08. In the town the population is spread out with 30.3% under the age of 18, 8.1% from 18 to 24, 30.2% from 25 to 44, 20.9% from 45 to 64, and 10.5% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 33 years. For every 100 females there are 93.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 90.6 males. The median income for a household in the town is $35,660, and the median income for a family is $40,400. Males have a median income of $31,582 versus $21,984 for females. The per capita income for the town is $15,208. 12.0% of the population and 10.2% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total people living in poverty, 15.9% are under the age of 18 and 12.9% are 65 or older.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Green, Oregon."

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Greens

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Greens are members of the peace movement and/or the ecology movement, and/or the feminist movement, and who support some or all of goals of a Green Party without necessarily working with or voting for that or any party.

Some consider themselves to be part of a globally-organized Green Movement, but others do not clearly share a commitment to all of the Four Pillars that most Greens accept as their basis of unity.

A small sample of the factions or tendencies that exist on the movement's fringe:

Pacifist Greens are those who reject violence entirely, even that done by laws and votes, and do not generally support even simple Electoral Reform. They may support an NGO such as Greenpeace, or more radical groups engaged in destruction of property that propagates violence.

Deep Greens follow the ascetic ethics of Spinoza, Mohandas Gandhi and indigenous peoples. They are usually rural people who prefer wild to "tamed" living. Cf. also the ideology of deep ecology.

Wild Greens are a youth movement of New Zealand Greens, committed to direct action and taking bodily risks to protect nature.

Viridian Greens are a more artistic movement in the U.S., originated by science fiction writer Bruce Sterling, and have fewer objections to media or technology. They are usually urban people.

Soylent Greens are more nihilistic, and employ reverse psychology for purposes of culture jamming. They often alternate wild and urban modes - and are generally very secretive. They also accept the label Terrists.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Greens."

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United States Green Party

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Green parties are parties with strongly ecologically-minded, but usually left-leaning, platforms. An important difference between many Greens and most traditional leftists is that Greens (particularly those coming from an ecology perspective) tend to reject centralized control or management. Due in part to this, in the United States, until 2000, there were two different organizations that could reasonably be called "The Green Party": The Green Party of the United States (formerly known as the Association of State Green Parties) and Greens / Green Party USA.

History

Largely inspired by the success of the German Green Party, political activists in the United States formed the Committees of Correspondence in 1984, later to be known as the Green Committees of Correspondence (GCOC). The GCOC adopted the Ten Key Values as their philosophical basis, loosely based on the Four Pillars that most European Greens use. They organized themselves around bio-regional lines.

The GCOC held national gatherings of green activists in 1987, then annually starting in 1989. At the 1991 national gathering, the GCOC was disbanded, and a new structure was put into place, named the Greens/Green Party USA (GPUSA), which was organized with delegates from local and regional green groups, in addition to individual members.

In 1990, Jim Sykes ran as a green for governor in Alaska. He received 3.3% of the vote, enough to grant official ballot status to the Green Party in the state. The California Green Party would follow, attaining official ballot status in 1991. From 1992 to 1995, the number of candidates in local and state-wide elections identifying themselves grew, in addition to the number of organized local and state-wide green groups.

At the 1995 national gathering of the GPUSA in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a measure to run a candidate for president was defeated. However, those who wished to run a candidate for president continued to pursue this possibility. They selected Ralph Nader as their presidential candidate and Winona LaDuke as their vice-presidential candidate. The pair were on the ballot in twenty-two states and received 685,128 votes, or 0.7% of all votes cast. [1]

In the aftermath of the 1996 election, representatives from eleven state Green Parties joined to form the Association of State Green Parties (ASGP). The focus of the ASGP, while still including issue activism and non-electoral politics, was more clearly on getting greens elected. In the years from 1997 to 1999, more local, regional, and state-wide green parties continued to form. Many of these parties affiliated themselves with both the ASGP and the GPUSA.

In the year 2000, the ASGP nominated Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke for President and Vice-President again. This time, the pair were on 44 state ballots and received 2,882,897 votes, or 2.7% of all votes cast [1].

In October of 2000 (during the campaign), a proposal was made to alter the structures of the ASGP and GPUSA to be complementary organizations with the ASGP focusing on electoral politics and the GPUSA focusing on issue advocacy. The Boston Proposal (so named because it was negotiated at Boston in the days before the first presidential debate) was passed by the ASGP at its next annual gathering, but did not pass at the GPUSA Congress. The ASGP then changed its name to "The Green Party of the United States" and was granted status as the official National Committee of the Green Party by the FEC in 2001. Today the GPUSA survives as a small membership organization, led by the few Greens who opposed the Boston Proposal. Though they often represent themselves to the contrary, they do not represent the vast majority of Greens, and only a handful of state parties are affiliated with them.

Geographic Distribution

The Green Party is most popular in the far-western and northeastern United States, as judged by percentage vote in the 2000 presidential election [1] and number of candidates elected [1]. The California Green Party has the largest number of greens, receiving 405,722 votes in the 2000 presidential elections, and electing 62 of the 171 office-holding greens nation-wide as of November, 2002. In the 2002 Governor's race, the city of San Francisco gave more votes to the Green Party candidate than to the Republican candidate. The president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is also a Green Party member. The Alaskan Green Party has the highest number per capita of Greens, receiving 10% of the votes statewide in the 2000 presidential elections.

See also: List of political parties in the United States

External Links

• Green Party of the United States
• Greens / Green Party USA
• Text of Boston Proposal
• Green Party Ballot Status and Voter Registration Totals
• Status of State Green Parties in the US (GPUS or G/GPUSA?)
• Greens in office

Sources

• http://www.greenpartyus.org/fec/fec.html
• http://www.greenparties.org/documents/cand_hist.html
• http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/jan-june00/green_history.html
• http://www.txgreens.org/GreenHistory.htm
• http://www.greenparty.org/intro.html

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "United States Green Party."

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Village green

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

A village green is an area of common grass land at the centre of a settlement. Some may also have a pond. Greens are increasingly rare and are mainly to be found in the older villages of mainland Europe, and the United Kingdom. Everyone has the right to graze animals on this land although few people now do so.

Enclosure, the agricultural revolution, and urban development have led to the loss of a number of village greens. Town expansion in the mid 20th century led to the formation of local conservation societies, often centering on village green preservation, as parodied in The Kinks' album \The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society.

The green is traditionally at a central location and provides an open-air meeting place for the people of a village, specifically at times of celebration. May Day festivities are traditionally located at the green, with the Maypole errected at its centre. See also Beltane.

A notable example of a village green is that in the village of Finchingfield in the English county of Essex, which is said to be "the most photographed village in England" [1]. The green dominates the village, and slopes down to a duck pond, and is occasionally flooded when it has been raining too much.

There are two places in the United States called Village Green: Village Green-Green Ridge, Pennsylvania, and Village Green, New York.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Village green."

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Worldwide green parties

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

While the generic term "green party" can be used by anyone, there are a number of loosely-affiliated but nonetheless formally organized political parties and political movements based on the Four Pillars of the Green Party to which the term is especially applicable. The Greens view grassroots democracy, pacifism, and social justice causes - especially those related to the plight of indigenous peoples - as inherently related to ecology and human bodily health.

Thriving of natural ecoregions, preventing global climate change, and preserving other aspects of the natural environment (see environmentalism) are viewed as necessary to maintenance of human life, and perhaps more importantly, as a neutral focus for people to find ways to agree even with deadly enemies. To Greens, peace follows ecology.

In March 1972 the world's very first Green party, the United Tasmania Group was formed at a public meeting in Hobart; in May 1972 a meeting at Victoria University, Wellington, launched the Values Party, the world's first national Green party. The term 'Green' was first coined by the German Greens when they contested their first national level election in 1980.

Global reach

Around the world, there has been an explosion of Green Parties over the last 30 years. Green Parties now exist in most countries with democratic systems: from Canada down to Peru; from Norway to South Africa; from Ireland to Mongolia. Even in some countries without democratic systems, there are now Green NGOs: for instance, in China there is Green-Web.

Turning to the subject of bioregional democracy, only one Green Party in the world is organized along bioregional lines: The Green Party of Alaska. Green Parties seek to win elections, and so organize themselves by the presented electoral districts.

Green Parties are part of, but do not exclusively represent, a larger political movement to reform human governance to better fit the constraints of the biosphere - usually called the Green Movement to contrast it from the electoral participation of the legally-registered Parties.

No monopoly on policy

A (small-g) green party is not necessarily committed to the entire program of the Green Parties as such. What follows describes only parties that include peace movement and social justice ideals:

In some countries, notably the U.S., there are or have been multiple parties with differing platforms naming themselves Green. Many people also confuse Green Parties with Greenpeace, a global NGO prominent in the ecology movement and peace movement - with which there are very substantial policy and methodology differences.

On matters of ecology, extinction, biosafety, biosecurity, safe trade and health security, "Greens" generally agree or at least have some agreement to agree, typically based on scientific consensus and peer review. The confusion seems to arise from the similar positions taken by Greenpeace and Green Parties on these ecological issues, and characterization of the Parties as concerned with a single-issue - although supporters counter that "life is body within ecology", and that there is no point or value putting anything before a human's own health.

That conviction aside, there are very substantial policy differences between and among Green Parties in each country and culture, and constant debate about the degree to which natural ecology and individual needs align.

Critics sometimes claim that the universal and immersive nature of ecology, and the necessity of converting some of it to serve humanity, renders the entire political program of Green Parties a shallow excuse to claim a monopoly on the means of production that sustain all human lives. These critics often see Green programs as just a form of socialism or fascism - which some claim are more characteristic of Gaians or non-parliamentary groups such as Green Anarchist, who are part of the Green Movement but less committed to democracy or humanity.

Global Cooperation

Global cooperation is taking place increasingly. Global Gatherings of Green Parties now happen. The first Global Gathering took place in Canberra, in 2001. It agreed a proposal from the African Green Parties that the next Global Gathering will be hosted by them, no later than 2006.

The Gatherings agree on organizational matters. The first Gathering voted unanimously to set up the Global Green Network (GGN). The GGN is composed of three representatives from each Green Party. A companion organization was set up by the same resolution: the Global Green Coordination (GGC). This is composed of three representatives from each Federation (Africa, Europe, The Americas, Asia/Pacific.) Discussion of the planned organization took place in several Green Parties prior to Canberra. [1] The GGC communicates chiefly by email. Any agreement by it has to be by unanimity of its members. It may identify possible global campaigns to propose to Green Parties world wide. The GGC may endorse statements by individual Green Parties. For example, it endorsed a statement by the US Green Party on the Israel-Palestine conflict. [1]

Secondly, the Canberra Global Green Gathering agreed a Global Greens Charter. Over time, each Green Party can discuss this and organize itself to approve it, some by using it in the local press, some by translating it for their web site, some by incorporating it into their manifesto, some by incorporating it into their constitution document. [1] This process is gradually taking place. In an online forum several Green Parties say where they are up to with this process. [1]

Thirdly, Global Green Gatherings are an opportunity for informal networking, from which joint campaigning may arise. For example, a campaign to protect the New Caledonian coral reef, by getting it nominated for World Heritage Status: a joint campaign by the New Caledonia Green Party, New Caldonian indigenous leaders, the French Green Party, and the Australian Greens Party.[1] Another example concerns Ingrid Betancourt, the leader of the Green Party in Colombia, the Green Oxygen Party, Partido Verde Oxigeno. Ingrid Betancourt and the party's Campaign Manager, Claire Rojas, were kidnapped by a hard-line faction of the FARC on 7 March 2002, while travelling in FARC-controlled territory. Ingrid Betancourt had spoken at the Canberra Gathering, making many friends. As a result, Green Parties all over the world have organized, pressing their governments to bring pressure to bear. For example, the Austrian Green Party has campaigned, the Scottish Green Party, Green Parties in African countries, in Canada, Brazil, Peru, Mexico, France, Sweden etc. Bob Brown, the leader of the Australian Greens Party, went to Colombia, as did an envoy from the European Federation, Alain Lipietz, who issued a report. [1] The four Federations of Green Parties issued a message to FARC. [1] Ingrid Betancourt and Claire Rojas are still prisoners, facing their death. However, the effort of the Green Parties does at least show their potential to unite and campaign jointly. [1]

Separately from the Global Green Gatherings, Global Green Meetings take place. For instance, one took place on the fringe of the World Sustainable Development Summit in Johannesberg. Green Parties attended from Australia, Taiwan, Korea, South Africa, Mauritius, Uganda, Camaroon, Greek Cyprus, Italy, France, Belgium, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Norway, the USA, Mexico and Chile. The Global Green Meeting discussed the situation of Green Parties on the African continent; heard a report from Mike Feinstein, the Mayor of Santa Monica, about setting up a web site of the GGN; discussed procedures for the better working of the GGC; and decided two topics on which the Global Greens could issue statements in the near future are Iraq and the 2003 WTO meeting in Cancun.

The GGC was responsible for creating a Global Greens web site. This web site represents the efforts of the GGC to deepen communication between Green Parties, and to facilitate action on matters of global consequence.

The disadvantage of global organizing and of the Green Charter is that it is not a Green way, to impose things from the center. The Green spirit is about decentralization, localization, and 'power to the people.' This is more of a valid criticism of the Green Charter than it is of the GGC - since unanimity is always required - or of the GGN, which is only about coordinating campaigns and campaigning jointly. Or of the Global Green Gatherings, since they are merely an opportunity to talk together: participants report a buzz from being there.

However, in the case of the Charter, it does consist of generalizations, when local reality in the present moment is unique. To listen to generalizations, (and to force their application by law) is the root of authoritarianism. However, that is the political process, and we must reduce our ambitions of how perfect Green Parties might be. For perfection we must turn to emotional and spiritual work.

Ethics

Green Parties participate in the legal electoral process and seek to influence the definition and enforcement of law in each nation in which they are organized. Accordingly, Green Parties do not advocate an end to all law or all violent or potentially-violent enforcement of law, although they prefer peace, de-escalation, and harms reduction approaches to enforcement.

Often confused with "left" political parties advocating central control of capital, Green Parties usually advocate stark divisions between public commons (in land or water) and private enterprise, with little cooperation - higher energy and material prices are presumed to create efficient enterprise. Green Parties rarely support subsidies to corporations - sometimes excepting research grants to find more efficient industrial techniques.

Many "right" Greens follow more geo-libertarian views which emphasize natural capitalism - and shifting taxes away from value created by labor or service and charging instead for human consumption of the wealth created by the natural world. That said, Greens may view the processes by which living beings compete for mates homes and food, ecology, and the cognitive and political sciences very differently. These differences tend to drive debate on ethics, formation of policy, and the public resolution of these differences in leadership races. There is no single "Green Ethic".

Values

Values of indigenous peoples (or "First Nations"), and to a lesser degree the ethics of Mohandas Gandhi, Spinoza and Crick, and the growth of awareness of ecology, have had a very heavy influence on Greens - most obviously in their advocacy of long-term "seven generation" foresight, and on the personal responsibility of every individual to make moral choices. These ideas have been summed in the Ten Key Values drafted by the U.S. Green Party which include restatement of the Four Pillars that European Greens used.

In 2001, delegates for green parties from 70 countries decided upon a Global Greens Charter which proposes six key principles.

Some Greens view the compromises of other political parties as dishon