The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy (Politics and the Environment) - Hardcover

"For those wanting to think outside the square on climate change issues, this book is indispensable."-Bob Birrell, Director of the Centre for Population and Urban Research at Monash University "The partnership of philosopher and ecologist Joseph Wayne Smith with emeritus professor of medicine David Shearman has produced an analysis that covers the gamut from governance in a liberal democracy to a treatise on banking institutions. The authors conclude that the environmental goods necessary to sustain civilization will collapse unless humanity's "loving marriage to economic growth" can be sundered."-Virginia Deane Abernethy, Emeritus Professor, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine "Warnings of a pending environmental crisis are no longer the prerogative of solitary prophets. They now reflect the consensus of the scientific establishment. But how radical a change in established political thinking do they require of us? This volume makes a powerful case for the view that taking environmental crisis seriously implies a radical critique of democracy itself, and a willingness to accept government by qualified expertise rather than popular election. If political thinking at its best makes the pressing questions of the day an occasion to revisit cherished fundamentals, then this book qualifies."-Gordon Graham, Henry Luce III Professor of Philosophy and the Arts at Princeton Theological Seminar "This is a provocative book. Many will disagree with its conclusions, but the dilemma it points to is real and cannot be ignored."-Dr. Katharine Betts, Associate Professor Sociology, Swinburne University of Technology "Arriving at a time when governments, corporations and consumers are bragging about their voluntary emission reduction steps, this book judges current and pending efforts as failures, and moves the discussion to the next phase. For conversion to sustainable societies, liberal democracy must give way to "a form of authoritarian government by experts" which the authors sketch out at the end. This is an argument-moving book, a fresh and audacious contribution to the climate change debate."-Otis L. Graham, University of California, Santa Barbara (Emeritus)

This provocative book presents compelling evidence that the fundamental problem behind environmental destruction-and climate change in particular-is the operation of liberal democracy.