Peter Varley - Green INTRODUCING myself: I am 47 years old. I went to school at Bettws, and lived in Ringland for many years before taking up a fixed-term research contract in Tokyo.

Within the Green Party, I have concentrated on alternative energy and related policy issues. I stood for the Green Party in the last Assembly elections as lead candidate for South-East Wales.

In one local campaign, the Green Party used the slogan: "Vote for us, or the planet gets it!" This is not putting the case too strongly. Only the Green Party puts the environment first.

Our society and our lives depend on our environment. As we harm the environment, so we harm ourselves. It cannot be taken for granted. We must work to preserve it.

Natural resources are finite, and we must live within our means. But the three largest parties support exploitation of the world's diminishing natural resources in the name of profit. While they juggle with tax cuts, they are just tinkering with a system which is fundamentally broken.

The Green Party is committed to social justice. Our welfare policy, based around the citizen's income, offers a way out of the poverty trap.

We are committed to peace. War is never an acceptable way to resolve disagreements. We oppose weapons of mass destruction. Gwent Greens are particularly active in the Stop the War Coalition.

Although people from many parties were also active as individuals, the Green Party was the only party which was consistently against the invasion of Iraq.

Green policies would create 50,000 new jobs in Wales in peaceful, sustainable industries. We will need wind power, offshore and on brownfield sites, now and for the foreseeable future, to power these new industries.

I oppose the proposed Severnside Airport and M4 relief road between Magor and Castleton. Aviation is unsustainable environmentally, socially and economically. The motorway will devastate the largest area of wet grassland in Wales and destroy local communities. Local jobs will be exported to England down the new road, as they are down the M4.

In our manifesto, we set out policies to build a sustainable society: one based on the principles of social, economic and environmental justice. Our vision for Britain is realistic, honest and compassionate. It is about putting trust back into politics and giving our children the best future we can. We promise a political programme for the next hundred years, not just the next hundred days.

http://uk.geocities.com/greennewport2005