Greens are people who support some or all of goals of a Green Party without necessarily working with or voting for that or any party. Most of them consider themselves to be part at least of a global Green movement. A potential basis of unity for Greens could be Green values (as made explicit in the Four Pillars and other documents), but even these aren't shared by all people who see themself as Greens.

Historically, "being green" developed as a political identity together with the blooming of the peace movement, the ecology movement, and the feminist movement in the late 1970s, the time the first green parties on a local level were founded.

Different kinds of Greens

A small sample of the factions or tendencies that exist on the movement's fringe — some only in very small numbers:

• Pacifist Green are those who reject violence entirely, even that done by laws and votes, and do not generally support even simple Electoral Reform. They may support an NGO such as Greenpeace, or more radical groups engaged in destruction of property that propagates violence.

• Deep Greens follow the ascetic ethics of Spinoza, Mohandas Gandhi, and indigenous peoples. They are usually rural people who prefer wild to "tamed" living. Cf. also the ideology of deep ecology.

• Wild Greens are a youth movement of New Zealand Green Party, committed to direct action and taking bodily risks to protect nature.

• Viridian Greens are a more artistic movement in the U.S., originated by science fiction writer Bruce Sterling, and have fewer objections to media or technology.

• Eco-Anarchists (Eco-anarchism, Green anarchism) can also be thought of as greens (but not generally Greens).

Greens is also a colloquial term often used when telling children to eat their vegetables, probably because most vegtables that children don't eat are green — in some parts of the United States, greens are a specific type of cooked vegetable, usually collard greens.

See also

• The article on Worldwide green parties gives an overview about organized green parties all over the world, their history, their goals, and their cooperation.
• The article on the Green movement describes the broader world-view of "being green" in the sense of a personal political identity.