The Foundational Green Generation

This is being written in the wake of the news of the death of George Martin on July 16.

The first generation of Green Party leaders … the founding generation … is starting to pass now. It’s poignant.

Our society has been going in a socially and ecologically unsustainable direction for a very long time. Fritjof Capra — who co-authored the seminal book, Green Politics, in 1984 along with Charlene Spretnak — wrote another book called The Turning Point. I do believe that posterity will recognize that we have started to effectuate a very important (actually pretty profound) civilizational turning point in our time.

Silent Spring, Earth Day, Limits to Growth, A Blueprint for Survival, UN Stockholm Declaration, and then the Green politics movement.

The leadership was unusually visionary. We should keep a list, and we should memorialize each. I can think of:

Petra Kelly (1992)
Murray Bookchin (2006)
Edward Goldsmith (2009)
Wangari Maathai (2011)
Danny Moses (2021)
John Rensenbrink (2022)
Mel King (2023)
George Martin (2023)