The Tale of Two Green Revolutions

There are two green revolutions underway in the world at present - the one named for the color of the opposition in Iran and the environmental one. Their trajectories represent a study in contrasts.

The Green Revolution in Iran, starting shortly after the rigged election in June has continued nearly unabated since that time. This has occurred despite brutal repression including imprisonment and execution. Leaders have gone into hiding and the spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Montazeri has died, and yet, the fight goes on. The media has been completed suppressed yet the people continue to get images to the world. The government can only hold power through brute force, yet the people continue to take to the rooftops at night and the streets by day, sensing that now is the time.

The other Green Revolution, that of the environmental one, could not be more different. The world summit in Copenhagen ended with a whimper. The general public seems less concerned with the issue than even a few years ago. Lip service is paid in all quarters to the need to respond to the challenges of climate change. Little is being done with the exception of propaganda efforts by big polluters to convince the world there is nothing to worry about. At night, we light up the sky flashing advertising to interstates while by day we burn fossil fuels for convenience sake. This green revolution is dying for lack of warriors.

The people of Iran will be able to look back to this time with pride in a period when they did all they could to change their world. The people of the world will look back to this as a time when we did nothing to save or even help our environment.

Two very different revolutions indeed.