Ecology-Minded Greens Sprout an ‘Anti-Party’ Valley Chapter

In 1979, the Greens, a new pro-environment political party, shook up West Germany with its crusade against nuclear arms in Europe.

Under the leadership of Petra Kelly, the stepdaughter of a U.S. Army colonel, the self-professed “anti-party” party of environmentalists and peace marchers won 27 seats in local and national parliaments and 5.6% of the vote in the 1983 West German elections. Stunned conservatives feared that the Greens would threaten the country’s delicate post-World War II stability, possibly endangering East-West relations.

Although their threat to the political status quo in Germany has diminished, the Greens have sprouted grass-roots groups around the globe. And now, in 1989, they have landed in a new political pasture: the San Fernando Valley.

“We’re destroying the planet,” said Greens member Ellen Maisen, 31, of North Hollywood. “Our whole life style is ruining the environment. You can only consume so much before you destroy too much.”

Maisen, a former elementary school teacher now studying sculpting and painting at Cal State Northridge, is one of several dozen members of the new San Fernando Valley Greens chapter, granted official status by the regional delegates earlier this month.

The Valley chapter joins about 25 other local Greens organizations in California, about 200 nationwide. Other Greens chapters exist in Ventura, West Los Angeles, Redondo Beach and Orange County. The Greens have grown steadily since the original U.S. chapters were established in 1984. The most active groups operate in New England.

Greens chapters in the United States don’t offer a political platform sprinkled with comprehensive positions on everything from gun control to Roe vs. Wade, although that may come later. For now, the agenda has two primary issues: saving the environment from “unchecked mass production and consumption” and halting the nuclear arms race between East and West.

Both the Valley and international Greens organizations call for more energy-efficient homes, slower community growth and a wiser management of dwindling water supplies. They also endorse mandatory classes on the environment in elementary school to teach youngsters that “we all have a responsibility to this planet.”

Although the Greens are long on principles, they are short on specifics.

“We have the values,” said Stephen Gussman, 49, a marketing consultant in North Hollywood. “Eventually, they will come together to form policies.”

Alliance With Business

Likewise, though the Greens hope to establish an unlikely alliance with private business, they haven’t yet figured out a strategy.

Businessmen “own homes too,” said Gussman, who serves on the board of directors of the North Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. “And they are going to go down the tubes too if we don’t do something about conservation, about the health risks in the environment, about the way we consume.”

What Greens in the United States have devised is a hit list of consumer products they claim endanger the environment and the public health: aerosol sprays, whose chlorofluorocarbons attack the ozone layer; Styrofoam cups, which don’t recycle and become toxic when incinerated; beef imported from Brazil, because that country is permitting the continued destruction of its rain forests; General Electric products, because the company produces a detonation device for atomic bombs, and Exxon gas, because of the irresponsibility Greens say the company has demonstrated in the Alaskan oil spill.

“Everything you eat and everything you buy has an impact in terms of the resource and labor base of the planet,” said Mindy Lorenz, 42, an art history teacher at CSUN. “Who made that thing? Where was it made? Were people exploited to make it? What harm does it do to the environment? These are questions we must ask.”

Lorenz, who helped organize a sanctuary for Central American refugees when she taught at Claremont College, and who participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations in the early 1980s, is typical of Valley Greens members: academically oriented, 35 to 50 years old, frequently involved in many liberal causes.

“I’ve identified with Greens philosophies for years,” said John Randall, 46, of Canoga Park, a sales manager for a T-shirt business. “When I found out about them, they fit me perfectly. I’m a vegetarian, and I have always felt close to the Earth.”

Echoed Maisen: “America should be a country where everyone is involved in decisions. People have been poorly informed. I’m in Greens because I believe we all share a responsibility in this planet.”

Gussman and other Greens say they are convinced that while the public remains largely inactive in environmental causes, it is only a matter of time before that changes.

“There is an overhanging anxiety which can only go so far before it breaks,” Gussman said. “Look what happened with the oil spill in Alaska. People are angry about that, probably because it drove up their gas prices. Things like this raise their awareness.”

As a party in the United States, the Greens, unlike their counterparts in West Germany, intend to move slowly. Lorenz said that if the group tried to field a slate of candidates in state and national elections, “we’d be mushed.” Valley members said they don’t anticipate shocking the American political system the way West Germany was stunned by the Greens earlier this decade.

Instead the group hopes to build from the local level up, raising a grass-roots consciousness that can eventually grow into political clout. The pursuit of electoral offices will be restricted, at least for now, to nonpartisan elections.

Werner Kontara, 33, of Encino, an aerospace engineer who started the Valley Greens chapter in January, said the group will focus on internal organizing and public education efforts in coming months. At a recent Peace Expo at CSUN, about 100 people expressed interest in the group, he said. Maisen said CSUN students might establish their own group.

Kontara said most Greens chapters in the United States begin in similar fashion: A few activists get together, organize meetings and apply for formal membership in the Committees of Correspondence, the national Greens organization. The Valley chapter meets twice a month.

National Conference

In June, two delegates from each chapter will attend a national conference in Oregon, when an official Greens platform will be established. Greens believe in reaching a broad-based consensus.

“In a majority vote, all you have to do is get over half the people to agree with you,” Kontara said. “But in a consensus situation, you have to work harder to have people understand your position. You have to bend more and look deeper to see if the principle you’re fighting for is really valid.”

Valley Greens say they feel a definite kinship with other affiliates around the world.

“We’re all in this together,” Maisen said, “and we know no borders.”