Unfortunately, we keep turning to the possibilities of democracy, not the realities. Most democratic systems are predicated on a kind of mediocrity. Democracy allows ignorance, skepticism, stupidity, idiosyncrosy - all the wonderful weirdness of human experience...That means the decisions taken, the people elected will reflect a kind of lowest common denominator (how do I act for or represent the most people - thus ensuring my own political survival). Long term decision making outside the realm of immediate self interest is a rare beast indeed in the political/democratic world. I keep hearing people say it is the best of a bad lot (to mangle Churchill and others) - but why do we accept that position? It is clear that the environment isn't protected under democratic systems - and if that is so, we need to look both a changing the system and looking at new systems too.

Next I believe you are overlooking a LOT of considerations;

Firstly, we don't exactly live in a real "democracy"- the extent of public input is solely that a few dozen people are appointed by pseudo-majorities (ie the largest minority of supporters) in separate regional ballots; Beyond this, they do whatever THEY feel like- or what's in the interest of lobbyists.
That's not democracy- democracy is where the public actually gets a say in these issues- and so far, only a sparse handful of referendums on environmental issues have ever been put forward (most of which ended up favoring the most environmentally-friendly option).

Yet more (actually) democratic countries like Sweden and Near-Direct-Democracy Switzerland consistently find themselves at the VERY top of every list of active and effective environmental management and practices- Sweden to the point where all infrastructure is being converted to fully accommodate eco-friendly practices (including construction of public-access recharge ports for electric cars).

King Hazza

I agree with you, we (the people) must force elites to do more on the environment (like Sweden).

We have that opportunity: all Australians are able to vote for the greens or whoever.

My hope is with the people to overcome their self-interest to realise they will benefit from greater environmental measures.

When I defend liberal democracy in the article, I am certainly not suggesting that all is okay on issues such as the environment. Personally, I feel we have to do much more

Next,

Are you suggesting that what we need are less democratic systems ? Like you and me, democracies exist in the real world, with real people, with all their compromises and flaws and defects and special interests. Would that it were a perfect world, but it does appear that 'perfect worlds', utopias, always degenerate into dictatorships, usually fascist dictatorships by whatever name. Not only is nothing perfect in the real world but we never reach a point of completeness either, of a finished project (cf. Karl Popper), certainly not in an inescapably political world, and although we have to run with something, we can never be sure that it is the best or final path: reality is also the Great Tester of ideas, it's what ideas and models and paradigms must always come to terms with, not the other way around.

Uncertainty, incompleteness and revision have probably been the rule forever, but we have been forced to contemplate it only for a couple of hundred years, since Kant, in the context of having to do SOMETHING. I suppose you could call this the post-postmodern approach :)

Joe Lane