Ode to Germany
After some antecedents during the nineteenth century (Thoreau, Morris, Muir) and twentieth century (Borsodi, Mumford, Leopold) the modern environmental movement really got going after the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962. Then there was Earth Day (1970) and then there was the initiation of electoral expression for the movement. The latter was inchoate and marginal until Green Party members got elected to the German Bundestag (parliament) in 1983. That was a leap.
The German chancellor makes news all the time. You’ve probably heard of Angela Merkel. If, after September, a Green is leading a major industrial power, I’ll predict that the prospects for Green parties worldwide will leap again.
Were she to emerge victorious in September, Wright said it would bolster “the ‘green surge’ that seems to have been taking place across the continent in the last few years.”
