Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of

chapter 1
Governance
We lack a theory of governance. . . . We need to invent whole new
institutions, new ways of doing business, and new ways of governing.
—Amory Lovins
I favor politics as practical morality, as service to the truth, as
essentially human and humanly measured care for our fellow
humans.
—Vaclav Havel
z
The u.s. constitution and the bill of rights
were drafted in an agrarian era by a small group
of men as collectively brilliant as any in history. The government
they created was designed with checks and balances and divided
authority in order to prevent executive tyranny, sometimes override
popular majorities, and avoid quick action on virtually anything.
From its agrarian origins it has grown incrementally ever
since in response to particular issues, economic necessity, and
above all war, but not as a result of much planning, foresight, or
effort to create a coherent political architecture.
Nonetheless, the framework they created has survived and
even thrived through sectional rivalry and the Civil War, the
excesses of the Robber Baron era, two world wars, and the rise
and fall of fascism and communism. The Constitution, for some,
is a scripture hence beyond reform. Historian Charles Beard, less
reverential, once argued that it was written to protect private