Dariusz Szwed
Encyclopedia
Dariusz Szwed is a Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

, feminist, activist. Chairman (together with Małgorzata Tkacz-Janik
Małgorzata Tkacz-Janik
Małgorzata Tkacz-Janik is a Polish feminist activist and politician. Together with Dariusz Szwed she leads Poland's green party Greens 2004. Since November 2010 she has been a member of the regional parliament of Silesia....

, chairwoman) of Poland's Green Party – Zieloni 2004. Delegate of Zieloni 2004 to the European Green Party
European Green Party
The European Green Party is the Green political party at European level. As such it is a federation of green parties in Europe.-History:...

. Co-ordinator of campaigns "Green economy
Green economy
A green economy is one that results in improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities - United Nations Environment Programme...

" and "Green energy". He is a candidate in 2011 parliamentary elections as the leader of the list of SLD in Chrzanów..

Szwed is a graduate of Cracow University of Economics (International economic relations) and University of Warsaw
University of Warsaw
The University of Warsaw is the largest university in Poland and one of the most prestigious, ranked as best Polish university in 2010 and 2011...

 (Economic foundations of environmental policy). He is one of the trustees of the Green Institute Foundation
Green Institute Foundation
The Green Institute is a think-and-do tank established in Bydgoszcz in 2009 by Beata Maciejewska, Dariusz Szwed and Karol Zamojski with its registered office in Warsaw. The Green Institute is aimed at implementation of the green political and social thought and promotion of work delivered by the...

 and the chair of its Programme Council.

Public activities

Szwed co-operates with the European Greens–European Free Alliance
European Greens–European Free Alliance
The Greens European Free Alliance is one of the parliamentary groups in the European Parliament....

 and is a delegate to the European Green Party. He is also a member of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.

Consultant on the issue of sustainable development
Sustainable development
Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use, that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come...

 in several organizations, including the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development is one of five institutions that compose the World Bank Group. The IBRD is an international organization whose original mission was to finance the reconstruction of nations devastated by World War II. Now, its mission has expanded to fight...

, Greenpeace International, Milieukontakt Oost-Europa, Northern Alliance for Environment and Development, Regional Environmental Center, World Wide Fund for Nature
World Wide Fund for Nature
The World Wide Fund for Nature is an international non-governmental organization working on issues regarding the conservation, research and restoration of the environment, formerly named the World Wildlife Fund, which remains its official name in Canada and the United States...

 (WWF), and IUCN.

In the first half of the 1990s Szwed was an active member in the Green Federation (environmental NGO). He participated in organizing protests against nuclear tests on the Mururoa atoll. Between 1996 and 1997 he coordinated the European campaign “Menu for the Next Millennium”, which aimed at promoting the sustainable development
Sustainable development
Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use, that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come...

 of rural areas, fair trade
Fair trade
Fair trade is an organized social movement and market-based approach that aims to help producers in developing countries make better trading conditions and promote sustainability. The movement advocates the payment of a higher price to producers as well as higher social and environmental standards...

 and ecological agriculture. This action resulted in introducing into the Polish law the first in the history regulations concerning consumer protection
Consumer protection
Consumer protection laws designed to ensure fair trade competition and the free flow of truthful information in the marketplace. The laws are designed to prevent businesses that engage in fraud or specified unfair practices from gaining an advantage over competitors and may provide additional...

 and environmental protection
Environmental protection
Environmental protection is a practice of protecting the environment, on individual, organizational or governmental level, for the benefit of the natural environment and humans. Due to the pressures of population and our technology the biophysical environment is being degraded, sometimes permanently...

 against genetically modified organism
Genetically modified organism
A genetically modified organism or genetically engineered organism is an organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques. These techniques, generally known as recombinant DNA technology, use DNA molecules from different sources, which are combined into one...

.

Throughout his term of office 1997–2004, Szwed acted as an European Parliament
European Parliament
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...

 adviser on the acceding countries. In 2000–2002 Szwed was an external expert of the Polish Ministry of Environment on access to information and public participation in decision-making and Aarhus Convention
Aarhus Convention
The UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters, usually known as the Aarhus Convention, was signed on June 25, 1998 in the Danish city of Aarhus. It entered into force on 30 October 2001...

.

Until 2007 together with Cezary Łasiczka he had been giving broadcast entitled “Political Ecology” on the Polish radio station TOK FM.

Political activities and views

Dariusz Szwed took an active part in saving the Rospuda Valley, a part of Augustów Primeval Forest
Augustów Primeval Forest
Augustów Primeval Forest is a large virgin forest complex located in Poland as well as in northern Belarus and southeastern Lithuania. The forest covers about 1,600 km², of which 1,140 km² is in Poland....

. In his open letter to Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński he put forward arguments for building Via Baltica route with bypassing the wetlands of RospudaValley. In the open letter to Donald Tusk
Donald Tusk
Donald Franciszek Tusk is a Polish politician who has been Prime Minister of Poland since 2007. He was a co-founder and is chairman of the Civic Platform party....

 he presented ten demands addressed at the coalition of Civic Platform
Civic Platform
Civic Platform , abbreviated to PO, is a centre-right, liberal conservative political party in Poland. It has been the major coalition partner in Poland's government since the 2007 general election, with party leader Donald Tusk as Prime Minister of Poland and Bronisław Komorowski as President...

 and Polish Peasant Party
Polish Peasant Party
The Polish People's Party , is a centrist, agrarian, and Christian democratic political party in Poland. It currently has 31 members of the Sejm, one member of the Senate, and three Members of the European Parliament. It is the junior partner in a coalition with Civic Platform.The party was...

, i.e., he supported Maciej Nowicki
Maciej Nowicki
Maciej Nowicki - Polish politician, manager, scientist. Minister of the Environment of the Republic of Poland in the cabinet of Donald Tusk .-Career:...

 who was appointed Minister of the Environment a few days later.

As a result of a political inter-party agreement, he was a candidate in 2005 national elections
Polish parliamentary election, 2005
Parliamentary elections for both houses of the Parliament of Poland were held on September 25, 2005. Thirty million voters were eligible to vote for all 460 members of the lower house, the Assembly of the Republic of Poland , and all 100 members of the upper house, the Senate of the Republic of...

 on 1. position of Social Democracy of Poland list in Olsztyn
Olsztyn
Olsztyn is a city in northeastern Poland, on the Łyna River. Olsztyn has been the capital of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship since 1999. It was previously in the Olsztyn Voivodeship...

. Social Democracy of Poland list received 459380 votes (3.89%) which was below 5% election threshold
Election threshold
In party-list proportional representation systems, an election threshold is a clause that stipulates that a party must receive a minimum percentage of votes, either nationally or within a particular district, to obtain any seats in the parliament...

.

In February 2009 Szwed contributed to launching “Agreement for the Future”, a movement that is led by Dariusz Rosati
Dariusz Rosati
Dariusz Kajetan Rosati is a Polish professor of economics and a politician who is a member of the European Parliament .-Biography:...

, civic groups and local authority representatives.

In 2009 European elections
European Parliament election, 2009 (Poland)
The European Parliament election of 2009 in Poland was the election of the delegation from Poland to the European Parliament in 2009 which took place on 7 June 2009. On 13 February the Sejm accepted a proposal for an amendment to the electoral court act to allow voting for the European Parliament...

 he stood as a candidate of the coalition “Agreement for the Future” in the Pomeranian Voivodeship
Pomeranian Voivodeship
Pomeranian Voivodeship, or Pomerania Province , is a voivodeship, or province, in north-central Poland. It comprises most of Pomerelia , as well as an area east of the Vistula River...

. He received 1758 votes (39.37% of a votes for the list), however, the coalition won only 2.44% in Poland and was below election threshold
Election threshold
In party-list proportional representation systems, an election threshold is a clause that stipulates that a party must receive a minimum percentage of votes, either nationally or within a particular district, to obtain any seats in the parliament...

. According to Newsweek Polska
Newsweek Polska
Newsweek Polska is an Polish weekly news magazine, published as the local edition of Newsweek. The magazine circulation in March 2009 was 192,000 copies....

 ranking Szwed was one of the 39 best candidates for the European Parliament. He was the only candidate in the Pomerian district who received support from Women's Party (Poland)
Women's Party (Poland)
The Women's Party is a Polish political party which claims to represent the interests and concerns of women. It was registered on 11 January 2007 and is led by the well-known author Manuela Gretkowska...

. Furtermore, Szwed was among four other Polish candidates who completed WWF questionnaire.

Szwed is a proponent of protecting consumers from monopolies, enhancing power efficiency and developing renewable energy
Renewable energy
Renewable energy is energy which comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat, which are renewable . About 16% of global final energy consumption comes from renewables, with 10% coming from traditional biomass, which is mainly used for heating, and 3.4% from...

 which he calls energy democracy. He disapproves of nuclear power
Nuclear power
Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...

 – together with Krzysztof Żmijewski he designed a project to replace 20 million bulbs with energy-saving ones
Compact fluorescent lamp
A compact fluorescent lamp , also called compact fluorescent light, energy-saving light, and compact fluorescent tube, is a fluorescent lamp designed to replace an incandescent lamp; some types fit into light fixtures formerly used for incandescent lamps...

 which would provide the same power (Negawatt power
Negawatt power
Negawatt power is a theoretical unit of power representing an amount of energy saved. The energy saved is a direct result of energy conservation or increased efficiency. The term was coined by the Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute and environmentalist, Amory Lovins in 1989. Negawatts...

), yet at a price 100 times lower than the cost of one block of a nuclear power station. Szwed is a staunch supporter of egalitarianism
Egalitarianism
Egalitarianism is a trend of thought that favors equality of some sort among moral agents, whether persons or animals. Emphasis is placed upon the fact that equality contains the idea of equity of quality...

, particularly of the politics of equal opportunities for men and women, as well as of protecting the rights of minority groups. Additionally, he is an active member of anti-war and alterglobalist movements. He advocates knowledge society, green technology, free culture movement
Free Culture movement
The free culture movement is a social movement that promotes the freedom to distribute and modify creative works in the form of free content by using the Internet and other forms of media....

 and free software
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...

. Szwed is a proponent of the separation of Church and State and the ideological impartiality of State. He has elaborately presented his views on the vision of European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

, its economic, environmental, energy and international policy, as well as on matters of outlook and ethics

Publications

Szwed is an author, co-author and editor of books and publications on sustainable development, green politics, i.a.:
  • "Green New Deal in Poland, Green institute
    Green Institute Foundation
    The Green Institute is a think-and-do tank established in Bydgoszcz in 2009 by Beata Maciejewska, Dariusz Szwed and Karol Zamojski with its registered office in Warsaw. The Green Institute is aimed at implementation of the green political and social thought and promotion of work delivered by the...

    , Green European Foundation
    Green European Foundation
    The Green European Foundation is political foundation at European level funded by the European Parliament. It is linked to, but independent of, other European Green actors such as the European Green Party and the Green Group in the European Parliament....

    , 2010; editor and author of an article on sustainable transport policy
  • "Greens: we will stop nuclear", "Parliament - for female economist or male nurse?", "Poland can become Europe's green tiger", in: "Green News" ("Zielone wiadomości")
  • "Green New Deal in Poland", in: "Goals and principles of development", publication for the Fifth Civic Congress in Warsaw
  • Polski odcień zieleni. Zielone idee i siły polityczne w Polsce, Heinrich Böll Foundation
    Heinrich Böll Foundation
    The Heinrich Böll Foundation is a German, legally independent political foundation. Affiliated with the German Green Party, it was originally founded in 1987 and rebuilt in 1997...

    , Warsaw, December 2008, ISBN 978-83-61340-00-3
  • Green Identity in a Changing Europe Heinrich Böll Foundation EU Regional Office Brussels, November 2008
  • Agriculture at a Crossroads. Volume IV: North America and Europe. International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science, and Technology, Island Press, Washington, D.C. 2008, ISBN 978-1-59726-548-5
  • Nuclear Power – Myth and Reality (editor of Polish edition), Heinrich Böll Foundation, Warsaw, December 2006, ISBN 83-85787-45-3
  • Food safety in European Union's agricultural and consumer policies in the New Member States, IUCN – Office for Central Europe, Warsaw 2005
  • Jak ubiegać się o udostępnienie informacji o środowisku? : przewodnik dla organizacji pozarządowych, Polska Zielona Sieć, Warszawa 2002, ISBN 83-915390-1-6
  • Udział społeczeństwa w postępowaniu w sprawie oceny oddziaływania na środowisko, Ministry of Environment, Warsaw 2002, ISBN 83-85787-35-6
  • Dostęp do informacji o środowisku, Ministry of Environment, Warsaw 2002, ISBN 83-85787-34-8
  • Zalecane kierunki zmian wzorców konsumpcji i modeli produkcji sprzyjające strategii trwałego, zrównoważonego rozwoju, Ministry of Economy, Warsaw 2000
  • Analiza kosztów i korzyści ratyfikacji Konwencji o dostępie do informacji, udziale społeczeństwa w podejmowaniu decyzji oraz dostępie do sprawiedliwości w sprawach dotyczących środowiska, Ministry of Environment, Warsaw 1999 (document not published)
  • Model współpracy pomiędzy Ministerstwem Ochrony Środowiska, Zasobów Naturalnych i Leśnictwa a pozarządowymi organizacjami ekologicznymi (co-author), Towarzystwo Naukowe Prawa Ochrony Środowiska, Wrocław, 1997
  • Trade Liberalization – an Environmental Problem – paper presented at the public symposium: Trade, Environment and Sustainable Development, GATT, Geneva, June 10–11, 1994

External links

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