The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy

Climate change threatens the future of civilization, but humanity is impotent in effecting solutions. Even in those nations with a commitment to reduce greenhouse emissions, they continue to rise. This failure mirrors those in many other spheres that deplete the fish of the sea, erode fertile land, destroy native forests, pollute rivers and streams, and utilize the world's natural resources beyond their replacement rate. In this provocative book, Shearman and Smith present evidence that the fundamental problem causing environmental destruction--and climate change in particular--is the operation of liberal democracy. Its flaws and contradictions bestow upon government--and its institutions, laws, and the markets and corporations that provide its sustenance--an inability to make decisions that could provide a sustainable society.

David Shearman is a physician and scientist who has held positions on faculty at Edinburgh and Yale University Medical Schools and as Mortlock Professor of Medicine at Adelaide University. He is currently working on several aspects of health and climate change. As a practicing physician he has maintained a lifelong interest in the environment and its relationship to human health.

Joseph Wayne Smith is a lawyer and philosopher with a research interest in environmentalism. He is the author ofGlobal Meltdown (Praeger, 1998) and Healing in a Wounded World (Praeger, 1997), among other books on the future of human civilization.