A green MSP for the west of Scotland, at 25, Greer’s youth is misleading- well versed in politics, he carries with him a potent sense of purpose and tenacity in pursuit of his goal; making the world a better place.
His interest in the environment and social justice drew Greer towards politics as a teen. Being brought up within the church also had a great effect on his sense of duty, as he explains “Those values that were instilled in me; a really radical notion of justice, what I would describe as ‘gospel values’ that were actually shaping my world views way more than I thought.” At 15 he joined the Green party, inspired by its 4 founding principles; caring for the planet, radical and grassroots democracy, peace and non-violence, for equality and justice, all values which Greer believes are “incredibly important and should underpin our society.”
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I thought that I could sit at 15/ 16 and continue getting angry at the TV— I could continue just tweeting my anger, or I could go out and do something about it— and I decided to go out and do something about it.
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Most surprising when talking with Greer, was discovering the Green party’s efforts extend deeply beyond environmental issues- from lobbying for the teaching of consent in sex education in schools, to improving the social and economic imbalances in our society. He explains that the Green mission is not simply saving the planet, but that by solving the smorgasbord of issues we collectively face, starting at the bottom, working from the ground up is the most powerful way to effectively solve them. “Only the greens were saying, actually the problems that we have in society are all interrelated. The climate crisis is related to gender injustice, is related to child poverty, and the solutions to all of these crises have to be interrelated as well.” Greer’s ultimate motivation to move into politics at a young age? “I thought that I could sit at 15/ 16 and continue getting angry at the TV— I could continue just tweeting my anger, or I could go out and do something about it— and I decided to go out and do something about it.”
Greer believes in the sharing of wealth and an equal distribution of power across social classes and gender is paramount to a healthier society AND planet; if we could collectively chart our own future, our earth wouldn’t face the current climate crisis that is curtesy of the dominant voice of the white, upper-class, male, patriarchal society we live in, as Greer notes “we want to end the strangle hold that this tiny number of people have over everyone else in society. Whether it is the people in this country that are being paid a poverty wage, or the people in the global south who are dying right now because of the climate crisis; it’s all interrelated” One example Greer has given me of solving one problem, and tackling two, would be to insulate all homes in Scotland. This would solve the environmental issue of not having to use as much fossil fuels to heat our homes and would also support those living in fuel poverty- as they’d need to pay less to heat their homes. Because this option doesn’t promote profit for gas and oil companies, it’s being resisted by those at the top making the money— this in turn is what the Green Party are fighting against. “I am a white man, and I’m privileged by the fact that I live in a society that gives white men all this totally unearned privilege. I’m privileged by the corporate geography that I was born here and wasn’t born in the Global South where life would be much harder for me. So, it’s about how all these things interrelate, but for me, unless you are tackling economics, unless you are actually ending capitalism as a system, we won’t be able to unpick these other problems.”
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Sexual relationship education in Scottish schools is on the whole pretty poor, and I think that has a pretty direct relationship with how women are treated in society with the problems that we have with rape culture— and unless we are tackling that in education, we’re not going to be able to tackle that in our wider society.
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One of the problems Greer is intent on unpicking is poor sex education in schools which, naturally leads to gender inequality in our male driven society and world at large. Greer is resolute on making sure that every young person is taught about consent as part of sexual relationships before they leave school. “Sexual relationship education in Scottish schools is on the whole pretty poor, and I think that has a pretty direct relationship with how women are treated in society with the problems that we have with rape culture— and unless we are tackling that in education, we’re not going to be able to tackle that in our wider society.” He continues “I campaigned for two and a half years, I got a parliamentary enquiry, a government review— all sorts of recommendations agreed, and we’re now moving towards a place where every young person in Scotland will be taught about consent before they leave school, because unbelievably, about 3 in 4 young people across the UK leave school having got sex education, but are not being taught about consent.”
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I am a white man, and I’m privileged by the fact that I live in a society that gives white men all this totally unearned privilege. I’m privileged by the corporate geography that I was born here and wasn’t born in the Global South where life would be much harder for me. So, it’s about how all these things interrelate, but for me, unless you are tackling economics, unless you are actually ending capitalism as a system, we won’t be able to unpick these other problems.
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In the same way he wants to remove gender inequality from the ground up, he wants to remedy the gap between social class inequality and power, by making stronger and louder the voice of lower classes, through exposure of debating and public speaking at school; after all, he tells me that this is the source of his own self-confidence and ability to communicate so effectively as he explains “the opportunities to do debating and public speaking when you’re at school are massively dominated by private schools, and top performing middle-class state schools.” Effectively, this means that if someone has come from a privileged background, this privilege extends itself to later life, as debating and public speaking cultivate confidence and teach good communication- key to influencing and getting what you want. He wants to empower everyone, not simply the already powerful which will have a knock-on effect in our wider society and world. “There’s a really nice comic strip- you could just describe it as a meme I suppose, that summarises this really well, where there’s someone standing up at a conference and saying “what if it turns out that climate change was a lie and we’d made the world better for no reason?” The stuff we want to do to save the world from this climate crisis will make our world and society better, separate from that number one priority of saving the world.”
I ask Greer if he could click his fingers and have any change happen, what would it be? He says that saving the world isn’t going to be cheap, and that the fossil fuel giants across the world who are profiting from the demise of the earth through the sapping of its resources, and who have caused most of these problems- are the ones who actually have the money to pay for this. For instance, Shell and ExxonMobil who are massively wealthy and multimillion dollar corporations would be stopped from continuing to look for more oil and gas to extract and burn… “we’re going to seize the assets of these companies; the massive obscene profits that they have made, from destroying the world— and we’re going redeploy that immediately into saving the world, because saving the world is going to be really damn expensive.”
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I’m not discouraging positive changes, and I’ve certainly made a number of them, but we absolutely cannot let the government and corporations and billionaires who caused this crisis, persuade us that it’s up to all of us to fix it— we are way past the point where individual lifestyle changes can actually stop what’s now happening.
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One important message I’ve taken away from this interview is to take action, but also to abandon any ‘Eco-Guilt’ from not recycling enough, or worrying, as Greer explains, “for years, the people who have caused these problems— one of the ways they’ve cheated the rest of us is by persuading us that the solutions have to be individual lifestyle changes.” Greer continues “I’m not discouraging positive changes, and I’ve certainly made a number of them, but we absolutely cannot let the government and corporations and billionaires who caused this crisis, persuade us that it’s up to all of us to fix it— we are way past the point where individual lifestyle changes can actually stop what’s now happening— what we need is wholesale economic transformation, and we will get that wholesale economic transformation by demanding it from the people in power.” He continues “we are a movement of hundreds of millions of people now across the world who are trying to stop this, and we are going to do it together, and we don’t need to feel guilty all the time about the stuff we are or are not doing, because the more we feel guilty, and the more we feel worn down, the more the people causing the crisis win, and we can’t let them win because we’ve got almost no time left.
From a young man, wise beyond his years, I wonder if he has any parting advice? “Don’t wait.” He tells me, “I was constantly told “you should wait, that you should get more life experience and then go into politics; you should go do something else first.” No, absolutely not! Politics needs young people, and young people need to be involved in politics, and if we don’t turn up, we won’t win, and if we don’t win then we won’t see the kind of change, not only that we want but that we need.”
