The green movement faces a painful confrontation with reality

Environmentalism is the ruling ideology of our times. Forget neoliberalism. That peaked around 2000 and was definitively dethroned by the financial crisis in 2008, the same year Parliament passed the Climate Change Act which paved the way for Net Zero. Since then, environmentalism has won victory after victory, so it might appear paradoxical that one of the founders of the British green movement struck a defeatist note. Speaking at an event to celebrate the Green Party’s 50th anniversary, Michael Benfield suggested that the ‘battle for the world’s environmental survival is, at this moment, lost.’ The Greens had succeeded in raising consciousness, Benfield said, ‘but we have failed in dealing with the battle for environmental survival.’

Any ideology claiming to represent the sole path to salvation from an otherwise inevitable apocalypse – in this case a planetary one – is bound to have a sobering confrontation with reality. As Benfield admits, the scale of the solutions he believes necessary are too unpalatable for any political party.