There was probably a time when green immediately invoked the idea, to quote Merriam Webster Online, "of the color green," but watch one episode of Alter Eco or simply pay attention to people talking around you and realize that time is definitely not now. Sure, the more common environmental connotation arrives from the association with the Earth and its frequent proclivity towards green (the color between blue and yellow) things but then again, the etymology of green is "akin to the Old English growan to grow."
It seems clear to me, then, that in the chicken/egg syntax of green color and green Earth, what probably happened is that this old word that means "to grow" was applied to things that grow and lots of those are green. The color between blue and yellow earned its name because so many things that grow, especially in English-speaking places like England, are green. So, what we might think of as a color becoming a movement, environmental adjective, political party or even transitive verb, ("they're greening their home") was probably the Earth giving people the color's name, and then people giving the Earth the name back. What's the point? The relationship between the color green and the environmental adjective green is more than a coincidence: the two are irrevocably and interestingly linked.
There are other implications to the etymology of green as well. If the word has first to do with growth, then when we talk about the idea of making things green, we don't only mean what we commonly think - making them more eco-friendly, reducing our carbon footprint, taking and using less, working locally - but we also mean growing the thing, as one would grow a business, making it better, not only for the planet, but also autonomously, for itself.
These ideas of green working together - growth, the soothing color we call green, environmental responsibility - makes for a word, an idea, an action and a movement so complete, so in harmony, and so positive, that it is no wonder the world is starting to rally behind going green, or why when you google green, eight of the top 10 results are overtly environmental. While this isn't a surprising thing, it's good that it isn't a surprising thing - there was a time when Kermit the Frog might have made the list and his "it's not easy being green," is rapidly being replaced by "there is no choice but green," and that is a good thing for our planet green.
