It is important to distinguish between two sorts of greenies. First there are those who think that the environmental problem can be solved by more attention to clearing up, or minimising in future, the damage caused by industrial-affluent society. Most environmentally concerned people are in this category, calling for things like more pollution control, but having no recognition of any need to question our affluent lifestyles or the rate of producing and consuming and economic growth their society involves. The first part of the following discussion argues that this common position is mistaken, that there is no chance of solving the environment problem without facing up to drastic reduction in GNP and ‘living standards’.

Unfortunately there are at present few greenies of the second type; people who realise that environmental damage is just one more huge problem being generated by our unsustainable ‘growth and greed’ society. There is no more important issue for environmental educators to focus on than the question of whether it is sufficient to patch up the damage being caused while plunging on down the track to ever-greater affluence and GNP, or whether the problems can only be solved by fundamental transition to a very different society, a radical conserver society. The argument below is that there is no chance of solving the environment problem nor any of the other major global problems facing us unless we move to lifestyles, patterns of settlement, values, and especially to an economic system which permit us to live well on far lower rates of per capita resource use and environmental impact that we have at the present in countries like Australia.