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Immigration means people which are going to regularly travel long distance in order to visit their relatives in their home countries. The recent explosion of migrations toward the 1st world countries coincide with an explosion of plane travel, which greatly contributes to global warming and pollution.

Furthermore, it has been shown (*) that people living in 1st world countries have a lifestyle which create more carbon emissions than people living in poorer countries. As such, immigrant in 1st world countries adopt the lifestyle of people already living there, creating further carbon emissions even when they're not visiting their home country, just because of the change of their lifestyle.

So in all logic, Green party members should be against immigration, except they aren't, at least not in my country (Switzerland). On the contrary, they are systematically fighting against nationalists who wish to reduce immigration. Why is that so ?

(*) I already know I'll be scolded for saying "it has been shown" providing sources, but unfortunately I don't remember where I got that from. It was something like, "in this country, people needs 4 planets to live, but in poorer countries they need less than 1 planet". Whenever I find a source on that, I'll edit this question.

PS: I'm talking about legal, economical migration, NOT about refugees. In all logic refugees are less likely to travel back to their country (because they'd be persecuted if they'd do so) so there's no reason to be against them migrating, in an ecological point of view.

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  • Not trying to scold you or anything, but I don't understand what your last statement about planets means.
    – David says Reinstate Monica
    Mar 1, 2017 at 19:40
  • Are you referring to parties called (some version of) "the Green Party" worldwide, or specifically in Switzerland?
    – origimbo
    Mar 1, 2017 at 19:40
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    To be honest I didn't understand if either but basically the WWF was saying "If everyone had our lifesteel, we'd need 4 planets in order to have so much energy/food" or something in the like. I agree it's a poor measure technically but it was intended for shock and propaganda and indeed worked since it shocked me :)
    – Bregalad
    Mar 1, 2017 at 19:41
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    @origimbo I do not know the position of other Green parties arround the world, but I have good reason to assume their positions are similar to that of the Swiss. I could be wrong, though.
    – Bregalad
    Mar 1, 2017 at 19:42
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    This seems to be a rant against air travel. One doesn't have to cross a border from their homeland to frequently fly. I doubt 'legal migration' is the major contributor to air travel (in fact, it's not. Business travel is.) This is kind of like asking why the Green Party isn't against kids peeing in lakes--mainly because one needs to pick their battles and that's hardly a major contributor to water pollution. -1 as the premise is faulty.
    – user1530
    Mar 2, 2017 at 6:55

1 Answer 1

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Because most green parties are left-wing parties. Environmentalism isn't their only political position. For that matter, few parties have only one political position, and some positions may (seemingly) be in conflict with each other (reducing the deficit and increasing military spending or building an expensive wall would be an example from the right).

Other positions of green parties include:

  • ecological wisdom
  • social justice
  • participatory democracy
  • nonviolence
  • sustainability
  • respect for diversity

By your logic, greens should support a large-scale reduction of the population (by any means necessary, including genocide) and the complete abolition of all modern technology (cars, planes, factories, and so on).

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    @user4012 well, it's from the Global Greens Charter that is linked. At least those green parties in countries I know also contain it in their platform. As always, praxis may (and does) look different than theory (the same goes for libertarians).
    – tim
    Mar 1, 2017 at 19:57
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    @origimbo - not the ones in USA (well, there's no political party per se) considering that they are very happy to resort to violence. Additionally, social justice immediately moves the quadrant from left-libertarian to left-authoritarian, since social justice is only achieved via use of force.
    – user4012
    Mar 1, 2017 at 20:00
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    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Party_of_Switzerland#Policies and gruene.ch might be relevant links too. It appears the Swiss Green's favor integration of immigrants which probably means traveling not much more than average Swiss. Non-violence is a directive of the global greens which the US and Swiss parties participated in. ELF and such might not be 100% overlapping with the greens, and certainly the US green's aren't organized enough to control the fringe fellow-travelers.
    – user9389
    Mar 1, 2017 at 20:08
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    @user4012 You are confusing some minor crackpots in the United States with a major political movement in Europe.
    – user11249
    Mar 1, 2017 at 22:57
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    Note that user4012 uses a different book than most of us.
    – user1530
    Mar 2, 2017 at 6:59

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