And in an industrial world where the animals are increasingly seen as a commodity or product to make money on haven’t improved the animals well-being. Rather, the intensification of our agriculture sector has made their life worse. And this cruelty is happening around the world. Even in the Swedish meat industry animal cruelty is common. And this even though the Swedish meat industry often and proudly proclaims itself for having "the world’s best animal welfare", one can see the awful consequences of industrial farming. The latest example of this is the Animal Rights Alliance disclosure earlier last year on the abuse and neglect of Swedish pigs.

The following disturbing photos in this blog post has all been provided by the animal rights organization Farm Sanctuary. The organization, which is based in New York, was founded in 1986. Farm Sanctuary document the abuses of factory farms, slaughterhouses, and stockyards, rescue animals from these conditions, rehabilitating and caring for animals at shelters in New York and California, as well as running advocacy and education campaigns on these issues.

Confined in metal and concrete pens with slatted floors, these pigs will live in these conditions until they reach slaughter weight of 250 pounds.

Female pigs used for breeding (breeding sows) spend most of their lives confined in gestation crates so narrow that they cannot turn around.

As you can see, a female pig in a gestation crate has no freedom of movement, and barely even has room to lay down.

Most beef cattle spend the last few months of their lives at feedlots, crowded by the thousands into dusty, manure-laden holding pens. The air is thick with harmful bacteria and particulate matter, and the animals are at a constant risk for respiratory disease. Feedlot cattle are routinely implanted with growth-promoting hormones, and they are fed unnaturally rich diets designed to fatten them quickly and profitably. Because cattle are biologically suited to eat a grass-based, high fiber diet, their concentrated feedlot rations contribute to metabolic disorders.

To raise calves destined to be slaughtered for veal, the calves are confined in crates about two feet wide and are tethered to the front of the crate with a chain around the neck. These calves will be slaughtered when 4-5 months old.

Dairy cattle make up the largest percentage of downed animals in factory farming, 75%. Too sick or injured to walk, this dairy cow is left in the stockyard while a calf looks on.

Though there have been moves in Europe to phase out battery cages for hens, in the US the vast majority of egg laying chickens are confined in battery cages such as these. These cages have wire floors and four or five hens are commonly packed into each cage. Obviously they cannot stretch their wings or exhibit any normal chicken behavior.

At chicken hatcheries, chicks enter the factory farming world packed into huge drawers.

Behind a hatchery for laying hens, unwanted male chicks–which are of no economic value to the egg industry–are simply tossed into a dumpster with shells and other waste.

Because commercial turkeys have been bred to have such unnaturally large breasts, to satisfy consumer preference for breast meat, they cannot mount and reproduce naturally. Thus, artificial insemination must be used for reproduction.

Due to the severely overcrowded conditions they will face, baby turkeys have the upper part of their beaks seared off so that injuries caused by pecking one another can be minimized.

Although not confined in cages like egg laying chickens, chickens raised for meat are packed so tightly in grower houses that each chicken is alloted about half a square foot of space. If that isn’t bad enough, because broiler chickens have been bred to grow so quickly (twice as fast and large as their ancestors) the organs and skeleton don’t always keep up with this growth. The heart and lungs can’t support the unnatural body mass, resulting in heart failure and large numbers of deaths a year due to health conditions.

Up to 10,000 chickens are often packed into cages for shipping to the slaughterhouse. On route, they are offered no protection from the elements and a certain percentage of birds are expected to die on each journey due to cold or heat.

At the slaughterhouse, chickens are hung up by their feet fully conscious. Although some slaughterhouses stun the birds by passing them through an electrified bath of water, US federal law specifically excludes chickens from the Humane Slaughter Act mandating that animals be stunned before being killed. However, often times the birds are not rendered unconscious by the shock and proceed, still hung by their feet, to have their necks cut by a mechanical blade. Unfortunately if the bird is not sufficiently stunned, the blade may not actually kill it and the animal proceeds to the next stage in the process while still alive. The birds are then submerged in boiling water to scald them and remove feathers. It’s estimated that millions of chickens a year in the US are ultimately killed in the slaughterhouse by this last step, being boiled alive.

Sweden, not so green anymore? Photo by: Per Ola Wiberg

The right-wing government in Sweden unfortunately won, with a two votes margin, the pro-nuclear vote in the parliament this past week and is now in full climate-wrecking gear. The political left-leaning opposition as well as numerous environmental organizations have criticized the plans to scrap the Settlement Act and the ban on new nuclear power in Sweden.

Maria Wetterstrand, political leader of the Green Party, said during the parliament vote that this decision "could mean Sweden will be making itself dependent on nuclear power for 100 more years and there will be 100,000 years of consequences for future generations who will have to take care of the waste."

If the opposition gets the majority of the votes in the upcoming general election in Sweden this September they have promised that they will try to reverse this nuclear vote.

Ludvig Tillman, spokesman for Greenpeace in Sweden, criticized the narrow vote margin and said that: "With a narrow majority, the members of parliament show they do not take the environmental risks posed by nuclear power seriously, and that they do not trust in the enormous potential there is for Swedish renewable energy."

The Swedish right-wing government will end their 4 years in power with an rather awful environmental record. Besides ignoring reports that points to nuclear energy as an dangerous, not cost-effective, and too expensive energy solution that even will worsen climate change the coalition of right-leaning parties have also made other climate wrecking decisions. The biggest of them all must be the complete embarrassment during the climate summits in Poland (Cop14) where the Swedish government called for as much as 88% of the EU emission cuts to be allowed to do overseas in development countries. In Copenhagen and during the Cop15 meetings the Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt refused to push for strong climate targets and disagreed with Connie Hedegaard, EU Commissioner for the Climate and COP 15 President, and her calls for 30% emission reduction targets in EU.

Other major climate-wrecking decisions include the controversial Bypass Stockholm (Förbifart Stockholm). The traffic link motorway will span 20 kilometres of which 17 kilometres will be by tunnel. It is estimated the new motorway will cost taxpayers 27 billion kronor ($3.75 billion), although the final costs will probably end up much higher, and will thus become one of the most single expensive traffic construction projects in Swedish history. Critics to Bypass Stockholm have complained that the new motorway will results in increased CO2 emissions. The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency has estimated that the construction of the new bypass will result in an 80% increase in CO2 emissions in the Stockholm region by 2030.

“The government’s decision is very unfortunate. Bypass Stockholm will increase Stockholm’s effect on the climate and increase vehicle numbers. At the same time, it will take resources from important commitments to communal traffic,” said the Green Party’s spokesperson, Maria Wetterstrand.

But the Swedish government has ignored all this and the appointed Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren even had the guts to describe the new motorway as an "environmentally friendly motorway". Like it could ever be such a thing as an environmentally friendly motorway.

Another big climate letdown from the Swedish right-wing government is their failure to stop Vattenfall, Europe’s third-largest energy company which is wholly owned by the Swedish Government, from investing heavily in dirty fossil fuels such as coal in Europe. They are currently building a new coal plant outside of Hamburg in Germany that once completed will become the biggest in Europe. As an energy corporation Vattenfall is releasing more greenhouse gases than all of Sweden combined.

Let’s hope that the left-leaning opposition gets the majority of the votes in the general election this September so that they can stop the downward spiral in Sweden. I miss the days when Sweden was a leading role model around the world in green innovation and policies. I mean, If neighboring country Norway can have plans and targets to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions with 40% by 2020 so can Sweden.

Today Greenpeace activists protested against recent political plans to introduce new nuclear reactors in Sweden. Dressed as different renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and water, and with the help from a old fire truck the activists managed to cross the security fences surrounding the Swedish nuclear plant. Once inside some of the activists managed to get up on the roof of the reactors, casting new light on the lack of security at the Swedish nuclear power plants.

Ludvig Tillman, energy campaigner for Greenpeace Nordic said that:

“The Swedish parliament is risking the country’s reputation and position as a progressive leader in clean and safe energy development. All the evidence shows that nuclear power is a dangerous, expensive and dead-end distraction from the real solutions to climate protection and energy security. Reactors are standing in the way of energy efficiency and renewable energy programs.”

“The reality in many countries is that reactors are hugely expensive, construction is often delayed massively due to safety concerns and technical complications, and there is still no solution to deadly nuclear waste,” added Jan Beránek, nuclear campaigner at Greenpeace International.

It was in 2009 that the current right-wing government announced their plans to scrap the Settlement Act and the ban on new nuclear power in Sweden. The new pro-nuclear agreement will get voted on in the parliament on the 17th of June. Sweden is already far behind other European countries such as Spain, Germany and Denmark in the renewable energy sector. And if the agreement gets a yes from the parliament, sane progress towards a sustainable energy system based on energy efficiency and renewable technologies will likely be blocked and pushed back even further.

“The world is watching. Swedish parliamentarians must let reason guide their choice rather than propaganda from the nuclear industry and vote NO to nuclear power on June 17”, Tillman said.

Also read: Nuclear Energy is Expensive, Dangerous, Not Cost-Effective and Will Worsen Climate Change

“The Greens won a historic first Westminster seat early this morning as the party’s leader, Caroline Lucas, overturned a 5,000-strong Labour majority to take the Brighton Pavilion constituency. After a nail-biting eight-hour count, Green activists cheered and yelled in delight as it was confirmed that Lucas, 49, had seen off Labour by about 1,300 votes. In a tight, three-way race the Conservatives were less than 3,000 votes further back.”

After the result was declared Caroline Lucas thanked the voters, fellow Green Party members and supporters who have helped the Greens win this historic victory. But she also criticized the media and the voting system which she says is “fundamentally undemocratic”:

“Thanks to the confidence that the voters of Brighton Pavilion have shown, Green principles and policies will now have a voice in Parliament. Policies such as responding to climate change with a million new ‘green’ jobs in low-carbon industries, fair pensions and care for older people, and stronger regulation of the banks will be heard in the House of Commons, ” she said.

“They have shown that they are prepared to put their trust in the Greens, despite the overwhelming national media focus on the three largest parties and a voting system that is fundamentally undemocratic.”

It’s great to see that the green political winds still blows strong throughout Europe. For example, in Sweden general elections will be held this September. And the Swedish Greens have gone from being one of the smallest political parties to the third biggest party (out of seven different parties) and a real power in Swedish politics with record high voter support in pre-election polls. The European Greens co-Spokespersons Philippe Lamberts and Monica Frassoni said in a statement that:

“This is a truly remarkable breakthrough for the Green Party of England and Wales and we know that Greens all over Europe and indeed throughout the world are delighted by this result. We would like to send our warmest congratulations to Caroline Lucas and her whole team of activists and volunteers who have been working so tirelessly over the past weeks and months to get the Greens’ message of social justice, fairness and environmental sustainability across to voters.”

Read more: George Monbiot says that the new “Green MP is welcome addition to British politics and reflects the transformation of the party”. In an interview with the BBC, Caroline Lucas says that this “is the start of a new political force in Westminster”. And the Guardian wonders what’s next for Caroline Lucas and the Green party after election success?

During these two press conferences I found a few interesting contradictions and points worth to notice. The first interesting statement is made by Joe Lionel where he concludes the following:

“The Scientific community is asking for the upper level of 25-40 % for industrialized world. Let’s say that 20 % is definitely not enough, that’s the conclusion what the scientific panel has found. therefore 30 % would even not be enough, that would match half-way what we could then do. It is not a scientific definition but a political assesment.”

Here he completely agrees that neither 20 % of the European target nor their 30 % target is enough. We have to do more to come up to a scientific standard. So the question I ask here is why is a political agenda the driving force if the science is clear? If we are to keep below a 2 degree target we also need progressive action inline with science, not inline with the political assesment made.

The next interesting statement is made by Stavros Dimas where he is commenting the ‘great deed’ of financing CDM.

“We have also invested in CDMs, many people does perhaps not know, that there are right now 3 billion euros worth of projects in CDMs, from this 80 % is from European Union and already 4 billion has already been dispersed. This is money coming from the European Union.”

When you hear this for the first time, you think: “Great, EU is contributing to the welfare of other countries and help them mitigate their emissions.” On a closer note what Stavros Dimas seems to propose here is that you should count the money given in CDM projects as climate finance. He specfically mentions that: “This is money coming from the European Union”. In this context money should NOT be mentioned AT ALL if they want to count the emission reductions that are made through these very CDM projects. However if they rather want to feel good about all the money being spent in CDM one should not count the emission reductions done. Put it simply, one can never eat the cake and keep it at the same time.

The next statement is from Andreas Carlgren where he explains the strategy of the European Union and how their strategy with a conditionalized target is going to put pressure on other countries.

“It is conditionalized because otherwise we would give up and sell out our target to cheap without making sure that united states and china would also deliver sufficiently we cover a bit more than a tenth of the emissions of the world. If the two countries covering half of the emissions of the world wouldn’t deliver sufficiently. [ ... ]. It would be just in vain and not for the good of the planet if we would sell out this target [30 %] too cheap. That’s why we use it as a lever. That’s why we put pressure on the others”

If we compare what Carlgren is saying to what Joe Linen is telling I’m wondering where the leverage point is? Joe tells us that 20 % is scientifically illiterate, at the same time Andreas tells us that this waiting game will be used to get others to raise their goals. The problems is that currently all the developed countries have scientifically illiterate targets. Would not a better strategy be to line up with the NGO, be the examplerary rolemodel, then all focus would be on the countries that do less. There would be massive media attention, generated from both NGOs and press and a lot more pressure would come from this than the meekly political pressure that we are seeing right now. That would be an absolute brilliant move. Because I do believe that EU:s core intention is for Fair Ambitious and Binding deal.

The countries have to start understand that we live in a different world than we did 30 years ago. Civil society has a lot more power with the internet technology, this could be utilized for good if the parties of the negotiations only understood how to do so.

Jonathan Sundqvist is following the COP15 negotiations in Copenhagen from a Swedish/European perspective and is writing about it on Adopt a Negotiator as well as here on Green Blog.

This past weekend around 50 000 people from around Germany protested in Berlin against nuclear energy. The demonstrators protested against threats from the current right wing government to extend a deadline for the country’s 17 nuclear reactors.

“In Berlin an estimated 50,000 people have joined a demonstration against nuclear power in the run-up to the German general elections.

The rally was headed by a convoy of 350 tractors, which drove past the office of Chancellor Angela Merkel,” Radio Netherlands Worldwide reports.

Back in 2001 the former Social Democratic chancellor, backed up by the Greens, pushed through a new legislation in 2001 that would phase out nuclear energy from Germany within two decades. But the Social Democratic and Green government lost the election in 2005 to a right-wing coalition consisting of the current Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democrats and the liberal Free Democrats.

Angela Merkel, who successfully blocked a strong climate deal for the European Union last year, now wants to scrap the nuclear phase-out legislation that the SPD pushed through in 2001. This is similar to what is happening in Sweden after a coalition of right-wing parties won the recent election there. According to Merkel, Germany “cannot phase out nuclear energy as quickly as some imagine.”

“But in the long term, that’s to say in the second half of the century, we will experience a large amount of renewable energy sources. We are convinced that we will be able to stop using nuclear energy at some point”, Merkel said.

The Social Democratic chancellor candidate, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, is accusing Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democrats and the liberal Free Democrats “of leading the country into an energy policy dead-end and endangering domestic security.”

On the same day as the anti-nuclear protest in Germany were taking place Greenpeace released a survey which found that 59% of Germans are against Merkel’s proposal to extend the deadline for the country’s already aging nuclear reactors.

“Our responsibility is to phase out power plants that endanger the health and livelihoods of future generations, said Greenpeace Finland’s nuclear campaigner, Lauri Myllyvirta at a speech the Brandenburg Gate.

“Each year nuclear power plants are kept running means more nuclear waste, more uranium mining, higher risk of accidents. There is no excuse: Climate change can be best tackled without nuclear plants. The nuclear phase-out in Germany is one of the reasons for the success of wind and solar energy all over the world. A relapse into nuclear power in Germany would send a very bad signal to other countries.”

Nils Diedrich, a political scientist at Berlin’s Free University, says that if Merkel and her right wing coalition manage to push through this pro-nuclear legislation “we’ll see a real battle”. He warns that “then there will be massive demonstrations.”

Although Germany is one of the leading countries in renewable wind energy it still has a dirty and toxic energy portfolio. 42% of the country’s energy comes from coal and 23% from nuclear energy. Only about 15% of the energy comes from clean renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.

Images from the Gruene.de

Photo credit: Hipnos

I often hear people saying that overpopulation is the main problem to our environmental and ecological problems. Some people even claim that it’s responsible for global warming. I also agreed with this idea before. But after reading more about the subject over the years I have changed my mind.

The rich countries in the “North”, i.e. the West, have a “rapidly decreasing” population which is “expected to decline over the next forty years.” Developing countries such as India, China and most of Africa on the other hand is where we will see future population numbers increasing.

And yes. It seems so easy to blame countries with an overwhelming rising population for being responsible for wrecking our planet, climate and environment. Because surely more people must mean more pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Right?

Not really. The West is responsible for about 80% of the worlds CO2 increase. An average person living in Great Britain will in only 11 days emit as much CO2 as an average person in Bangladesh will during a whole year. And just a single power plant in West Yorkshire in Great Britain will produce more CO2 every year than all the 139 million people combined living in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique.

As Fred Pearce from the Yale Environment 360 blog notes, only a small portion of the world’s people are using most of the planets resources as well as producing the most of the greenhouse gases. And those are living in the West:

“The world’s population quadrupled to six billion people during the 20th century. It is still rising and may reach 9 billion by 2050. Yet for at least the past century, rising per-capita incomes have outstripped the rising head count several times over. And while incomes don’t translate precisely into increased resource use and pollution, the correlation is distressingly strong.

[…]By almost any measure, a small proportion of the world’s people take the majority of the world’s resources and produce the majority of its pollution. Take carbon dioxide emissions — a measure of our impact on climate but also a surrogate for fossil fuel consumption. Stephen Pacala, director of the Princeton Environment Institute, calculates that the world’s richest half-billion people — that’s about 7 percent of the global population — are responsible for 50 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. Meanwhile the poorest 50 percent are responsible for just 7 percent of emissions.”

According to Pearce overpopulation in the developing countries is not the problem. Instead the increasing overconsumption among the planets 7% richest people and countries is to be blamed. And he is not alone in claiming this. George Monbiot, Europe’s leading green commentator, also agrees with this viewpoint. As Monbiot notes in a recent published article on the Guardian:

“As one the graphs King displayed demonstrated, and as the UN and independent scientists predict, the world’s population is expected to peak at around 9 billion by 2060 and then to decline to around 8.5 billion by 2100.

Of course the bisophere can ill-afford to carry these numbers, and they will load an extra 40 or 50% of pressure onto every environmental constraint. It’s an issue, in other words. But the issue?

Until the recession struck, the global rate of economic growth was 3.8%. The world’s governments hope and pray that we’ll be back on this track as soon as possible. Population, of course, is one of the components of economic growth, but the global population growth rate is currently 1.2%.

It’s responsible, in other words, for one-third of normal economic growth. The rest is supplied by rising consumption. Consumption, on this measure, bears twice as much responsibility for pressure on resources and ecosystems as population growth.”

Let’s take a look at the ecological footprint between developing countries and developed countries in the West. An ecological footprint is the estimate on how much land is required to provide you and me with food and other resources as well as cleaning up our pollution. The global average ecological footprint is 2.7 hectares per person.

Sweden, my own country, has an ecological footprint of 5.1 hectares. The UK is on 5.3. Australia has 7.8 and Canada has an average of 7.1 hectares. The United Arab Emirates and the United States of America are on the top spot with an ecological footprint of 9.5 and 9.4. Developing countries such as China only has an ecological footprint of 2.1 hectares while India is on 0.9. And most countries in Africa are around or below 1.0 hectares.

Pearce gives even more examples of unfair consumption between the rich and poor countries:

“Americans gobble up more than 120 kilograms of meat a year per person, compared to just 6 kilos in India, for instance.”

“Just five countries are likely to produce most of the world’s population growth in the coming decades: India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Ethiopia. The carbon emissions of one American today are equivalent to those of around four Chinese, 20 Indians, 30 Pakistanis, 40 Nigerians, or 250 Ethiopians.”

“A woman in rural Ethiopia can have ten children and her family will still do less damage, and consume fewer resources, than the family of the average soccer mom in Minnesota or Munich. In the unlikely event that her ten children live to adulthood and have ten children of their own, the entire clan of more than a hundred will still be emitting less carbon dioxide than you or I.”

Just like Monbiot and Pearce claims overpopulation is not the problem. Even if we were to get a zero population growth around the world it wouldn’t help us against the climate crisis. Instead the overconsumption among the rich few in the world is the main problem which we must deal with.

Climate Progress writes: “To avoid catastrophic global warming impacts, the rich countries need to cut greenhouse gas emissions 80% to 90% by mid-century. The developing countries (not including China) mostly must slow emissions growth, peak by mid-century, then decline — while ending the vast majority of deforestation by 2020. China must peak its emissions by 2020 and then reduce after that, first slowly, then quickly by mid-century.”

Overpopulation is only seen as a major problem because it’s the only thing we in the West can blame the developing countries for.

Vattenfall, Europe’s third-largest energy company which is wholly owned by the Swedish Government, has been announced as the winner in the Climate Greenwash Award 2009 at a ceremony in Copenhagen.

“Vattenfall, which won with 39% of the vote (about 2000 votes cast), was nominated for “its mastery of spin on climate change, portraying itself as a climate champion while lobbying to continue business as usual, using coal, nuclear power, and pseudo-solutions such as agrofuels and carbon capture and storage (CCS).”

The energy company also played a key role in setting up the World Business Summit on Climate Change through the Combat Climate Change – a lobby group established by Vattenfall to promote the “climate-friendly technologies” such as carbon capture and storage and nuclear power, which are the company’s preferred options for tackling climate change.”

Climate Greenwash Awards Coordinator Kenneth Haar congratulated Vattenfall for their hard (read: dirty) work which resulted in their first place. Haar also gave a special mention the Danish Government for giving these dirty corporations easy access to the climate talks:

“We would like to congratulate Vattenfall for their outrageous use of green spin to support their dirty business model. Vattenfall wants to build more coal plants in Europe, even though coal is the dirtiest source of energy – and it has successfully lobbied the EU for funds to develop carbon capture and storage technology. But even if this unproven technology works, it will not help reduce emissions quickly enough to help prevent the threat of climate change.

“I would also like to give a special mention to the Danish Government which has provided these polluting industries which such easy access to the climate talks. Denmark says it wants companies to back a deal on climate change, but the reality is that they are giving big business the opportunity to completely undermine the effectiveness of any deal that is done.”

Shell, Dong, ArcelorMittal, Repsol and BP was among the other energy companies nominated for the award. The Climate Greenwash Awards were organised by Corporate Europe Observatory, Attac Denmark, The Climate Movement, ClimaX and Friends of the Earth Denmark.

Photo credit: rockcohen

Green political parties from across Europe made a successful European parliament election this past week. The European Greens gained 11 new seats in the parliament and will now have a total of 46 Green MEPs, an increase with 31%. The Greens/EFA Group is now likely to have 53 MEPS (46 Greens and 7 EFA MEPs).

“To have increased the number of Green MEPs from 35 to 46 is a great success. Our showing is even more remarkable when you consider that we have 11 more seats than before in a parliament with 49 fewer MEPS and that all other groups have shrunk”, said EGP Co-Spokesperson Philippe Lamberts, who has been elected a MEP for the Belgian French-speaking Green Party Ecolo.

In France the green political party Europe-Ecologie gained 16% of the votes and will thus send 13 green MEPs to the European parliament. Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Finland are other countries where the greens will receive more MEPs than from the last EU election. In Greece 3.48% of the people voted for Ecologoi-Prasinoi and as a result Greece will be able to send their first green MEP to the European Parliament.

“The Greek Greens’ campaign demonstrated European solidarity as an Austrian-Greek Green stood as a candidate to support the Greek party”.

“What our 31% increase in seats proves beyond any shadow of a doubt is that the Greens are a major political force to be reckoned with and that we are gaining the trust of more and more voters, not only in our traditional areas like the environment and climate policy and human rights, but also economics and social policy“, Lamberts said.

The greens across Europe will together and stronger than ever work hard to gain support in the parliament for their €500 billion new Green Deal which will help solve the economic crisis and save our climate.

EGP Co-Spokesperson Ulrike Lunacek, who was also elected a MEP for the Austrian Greens and managed to maintain their 2 seats despite heavy waves of rightwing populism, thanked all the people who dared to “Think Big, Vote Green”.

“We will fight hard on their behalf for a Green New Deal for Europe, which was at the heart of our common election campaign and obviously appealed to many voters, including many who had never voted Green before,” she said. “The Green New Deal would not only create 5 million new Green-Collar jobs in 5 years but would also help fight climate change as 500 billion Euros of public and private funds would be invested in renewables, energy efficiency and other future-oriented technologies”.

I am happy to see that the Greens has a growing support among the voters across Europe, and that they will with the support of the voters get at least 10 more seats in the EU parliament. And I am happy to see that Sweden (for now) isn’t taking part in the Europe-wide trend of sending far-right extremist, racists and anti-democratic political parties to the European Parliament.

Election Results

The Green election results can be found below:

Watch:

via Vote or Die 2009

The upcoming European Elections are just a few days away. And when it comes to saving the climate this EU election is one of the more important ones. And I believe it’s definitely something you must take part in if you care the slightest about the climate, your children and their future, the environment or just the well state of your country.

But how, when and on who should you vote for? Don’t worry! Green Blog got you covered. You can find out when the deadline for voting is in your country by using this map here. And here you will find a complete list of green political parties that you can vote for around Europe.

Find your country’s green party and vote for it in the upcoming EU election. It really isn’t harder than that! This is our chance to vote for change. Don’t waste it.