GREEN Party activist Dr Richard Lawson addressed a party conference on economics.

Speaking at the Blackpool conference, the Congresbury-based former GP led a debate on the party's approach to the economic crisis.

His overview of green economics was published in the International Journal of Green Economics in 2006, and he called for the party to prepare its response to a recession a year before the credit crunch began.

Dr Lawson said: "People respect the Green Party's commitment to ecology but they do not realise that the ecology is the foundation of real economics.

"All real economics should be based on the environmental realities that underpin our lives."