Democracy challenged by the global threat to the environment

The underlying problem is that democratic government has evolved to be so attuned to the micro-managerial processes of election wining and poll massaging that it is now incapable of dealing with the sort of profound problem that the environmental crisis represents. Neither the processes nor personnel exist within our political system to do so.

The closest we have come to facing a problem like the environmental crisis is world war. Twice last century western nations faced total destruction.

How did they cope? Well, firstly, the crisis was always going to be temporary - a few years at most - so emergency measures could easily be introduced on that basis. All the same, wartime emergency measures were extreme: to start with, overnight most governments did away with the basic rights of their citizens. Then they introduced more or less stringent command economies. Smaller nations simply handed national sovereignty over to their more powerful allies. In a real sense, the Allies won these wars by abandoning democracy.

Democratic processes were resumed at war’s end and Australia and the United States are now in the midst of important national elections. No one who witnesses these exercises can fail to notice their contrived character and the absence of genuine political contention.

Elections bring out the worst in democratic politics: they are little more than elaborate charades acted out by party leaders staying “on message”. The reality is that there is overall agreement on the policy essentials between the major parties, and thus only minimal debate on the margins. The media go along by highlighting each minor difference. Perhaps none of this really matters much when the economy is ticking over and when most problems are relatively trivial in terms of the big picture.

But when that big picture could so dramatically change so as to threaten everything we need or hold dear, then this approach to government is no longer adequate. When democratic government failed in Germany and Japan, fascism rose to fill the void.

As a global environmental crisis emerges, such a totalitarian response, using the emergency as justification, is likely. Unless we can re-energise politics to form governments that can make the necessary changes on a national and global scale, it is democracy itself that is in danger.