The different dimensions of green politics

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Abstract
The purposes of this article are to define green politics and to set out the range of issues that Environmental Politics aims to cover. It is based around an extensive flow chart. This exploits the distinction between deep and shallow ecology. Deep ecologists argue that the only way to tackle the environmental problems facing the planet is via fundamental reforms of the way society is organised. The shallow ecologists, or environmental reformists, claim that it is possible to reconcile economic growth with the needs of the environment. The green parties are torn between the two positions. Their ideological roots are on the deep ecology side of the flow chart. But they have to operate in the context of the problems confronting governments now. This forces them into compromising their principles, or more or less opting out of the political system. The approach adopted in the article is to divide each of the three main areas of deep ecology, environmental reformism and the green parties up into a series of boxes as the flow chart progresses. The discussion of each of the 30 boxes outlines the issues, relates them to the existing literature, and, in many cases, makes suggestions for articles and further research.