Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of
Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of
Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of
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late-night thoughts about democracy S 53<br />
political systems that are frankly authoritarian. . . . Leviathan may<br />
be mitigated but not evaded” (Ophuls, 1992, p. 216). Heilbroner<br />
and Ophuls believed that survival in times <strong>of</strong> ecological scarcity<br />
would require a great deal <strong>of</strong> sacrifi ce and a lot less consumption,<br />
and doubted that <strong>the</strong> public could, on its own, discipline its appetites<br />
suffi ciently <strong>to</strong> avoid disaster. James Lovelock agrees, saying,<br />
“We may need restrictions, rationing and <strong>the</strong> call <strong>to</strong> service that<br />
were familiar in wartime and in addition suffer for a while a loss<br />
<strong>of</strong> freedom. We will need a small permanent group <strong>of</strong> strategists<br />
who, as in wartime, will try <strong>to</strong> out-think our Earthly enemy and<br />
be ready for <strong>the</strong> surprises bound <strong>to</strong> come” (2006, p. 153).<br />
There are good reasons, however, why <strong>the</strong> case for authoritarianism,<br />
in particular that made by Hardin, is not wholly convincing.<br />
The his<strong>to</strong>ry <strong>of</strong> common property resources, for example,<br />
reveals that <strong>of</strong>ten <strong>the</strong>y were well managed for centuries until<br />
outside forces upset <strong>the</strong> balance <strong>of</strong> cultural and social restraints<br />
on individual behavior. In <strong>the</strong> English case from which he drew<br />
<strong>the</strong> analogy, <strong>the</strong> common grazing areas disappeared not due <strong>to</strong><br />
mismanagement but because <strong>the</strong>y were seized by aris<strong>to</strong>crats over<br />
several centuries <strong>of</strong> enclosure. Their aim was a more “effi cient”<br />
and pr<strong>of</strong>i table agriculture, and <strong>the</strong>y were willing <strong>to</strong> displace tens<br />
<strong>of</strong> thousands <strong>of</strong> smallholders and subsistence farmers whose suffering<br />
was justifi ed on <strong>the</strong> grounds that it supposedly served <strong>the</strong><br />
larger good. On <strong>the</strong> scale <strong>of</strong> his<strong>to</strong>ry, our experience with coercive<br />
governments in general is dismal. The response <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Soviet<br />
Union <strong>to</strong> environmental deterioration, for example, ranged from<br />
awful <strong>to</strong> abysmal. In that and o<strong>the</strong>r cases, <strong>the</strong> reasons include <strong>the</strong><br />
infl exibility <strong>of</strong> bureaucracies, <strong>the</strong> lack <strong>of</strong> agility in changing circumstances,<br />
obliviousness <strong>to</strong> societal needs, and <strong>the</strong> many pathologies<br />
<strong>of</strong> unaccountable power that tend <strong>to</strong> corrupt absolutely (Orr<br />
and Hill, 1978).<br />
Still, Hardin, Heilbroner, and Ophuls have a point that has<br />
become more urgent with <strong>the</strong> passing decades. Even if we hold<br />
CO levels below <strong>the</strong> threshold <strong>of</strong> runaway change, we have<br />
2