ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that the structure and orientation of the latter is a more promising route for responding to policy stalemate in the environmental realm in late capitalist societies. It offers some important clues and guides for the further development of environmental ism in the United States beyond the constraints of interest-group politics and legalistic-moralistic prescriptions. In the realm of "environmental" policy, the Greens have taken the lead in mitigating the damage incurred within West Germany and across its boundaries by the phenomenon of acid rain. In contrast to the most active environmental groups working on the acid rain problem in the United States, the Green Party has recognized this environmental issue as being inextricably connected to economic policy and employment policy. The structural differences between the German and American political systems frustrate any aspiration to draw easy lessons from the Green Party experience for American environmentalism.
