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

60 S politics and governance
committed to protect the commonwealth. And it is a gamble that
we can build an enduring, fair, and decent global society around
smarter consumption. It is a gamble that this union will require
little democratic participation in defi ning the public agenda or
in making the decisions that affect the future of civilization. But
in the absence of robust government leadership and a revitalized
civic life, there is little convincing evidence that the transition to
a more natural capitalism would transform enough of the global
economy in time to avert disaster. There is a great deal of evidence,
however, that practitioners of natural capitalism, like all
previous capitalists, will make every effort to keep the consumer
economy growing, come what may.
The issue is not whether it is possible for corporations to do
much better, and I happily acknowledge that many are in fact
doing so. Nor do I dispute the potential of better technology and
improved design to reduce our carbon emissions and ecological
footprint. At best, however, such things only buy us a little time
to get the big things right, and those are things only governments
can do: maintain a forum for public dialogue, promote fairness,
resolve confl icts, provide services that markets cannot, and meet
our obligations across the boundaries of politics, ethnicity, time,
and species, all of which will grow more diffi cult in the conditions
of the long emergency. Natural capitalism is a necessary but
insuffi cient response to the long emergency ahead. But how do
we revitalize democracy and our public life?
RESTORING DEMOCRACY: MEDIA, MONEY,
CIVIC RENEWAL
Here the going gets harder and the issues become more contentious,
but a few things, nevertheless, are obvious. The health of a
democracy depends on what at least some of the founders believed
to be the inherent wisdom of the people, or what James Surowiecki
(2005) has more recently called “the wisdom of crowds.” But