We've got the experts to help. So, let's get to it. Green threads, the threads provided by the JVM, run at the user level, meaning that the JVM creates and schedules the threads itself. Therefore, the operating system kernel doesn't create or schedule them. Instead, the underlying OS sees the JVM only as one thread.
Green threads prove inefficient for a number of reasons.
Foremost, green threads cannot take advantage of a multiprocessor system. Since the JVM simply runs from within one thread, the threads that the JVM creates are not threads at the OS level. Instead, the JVM splits its timeslice among the various threads that it spawns internally. Thus, the JVM threads are bound to run within that single JVM thread that runs inside a single processor. In contrast, native threads are created and scheduled by the underlying operating system.