E3G

Address to Green Alliance 25th Anniversary

By Tom Burke

Tom Burke, formerly Director of Green Alliance from 1982 to 1991, gave an address to the 25th Anniversary celebration of the Green Alliance on 24th February 2005.

His address doesn’t just focus on the history of Green Alliance - it also encompasses the wider history of environmentalism and the political challenges ahead.

Address to Green Alliance 25th Anniversary

Thank you for that very kind introduction. It is a great pleasure to be among so many good friends tonight. Over the past twenty-five years we have all shared hopes and fears, laughter and tears, victories and defeats in the great cause that is our environment.

And through it all, the Green Alliance has been a growing force. We are here tonight to celebrate that growth, to renew and reinforce it and to look ahead to future challenges.

I am honoured to have been asked to introduce this evening. And, I must admit, a little intimidated. Guy Thompson does not do easy. ‘Just sum up the past twenty-five years and say what’s next – oh, and don’t take more than twenty minutes’. I will do my best.

But first I want to pay tribute to all of those whose hard work has brought us to this point. Many of them are here this evening. They are far too numerous to mention individually. Without them there would be nothing to celebrate and no future to plan.

But I could not let this moment pass without a thought for Maurice Ash whose gentle guidance and deep pockets in those always difficult early days got us off to such a good start - securing the independence of thought and action that has been such a hallmark of the Green Alliance.

The Green Alliance’s is a story whose end is yet to be written. But, it began, as good stories always do, with a very simple idea. The environment needs to be at the heart of politics.