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| Leigh Phillips - he advocates democracy to address climate change. |
Shortly after
the Copenhagen UN climate talks in 2009 collapsed, James Lovelock, a
godfather of modern environmentalism, was asked by Guardian reporter Leo
Hickman what should be done in light of the failure. Lovelock issued a call for
what can only be described as a climate dictatorship.
Rejecting the idea that a solution to climate change could
be achieved in a modern democracy, Lovelock thundered that what was needed
instead was “a more authoritative world” where there are “a few people with
authority who you trust who are running it.”
“What’s the alternative to democracy? There isn’t one. But
even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy
must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change
may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on
hold for a while.”
This call for a sort of benevolent dictatorship of science
is increasingly being made for a range of problems that we confront globally,
from biodiversity loss to antibiotic resistance.
Read this piece by Leigh
Phillips - “The Solution is Democracy.”
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