\n
David Shearman is an Australian-based leading advocate of sustainability and an emeritus professor of medicine at the University of Adelaide, South Australia. Writing in the book The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy with his colleague Joseph Wayne Smith, Shearman comments,<\/p>\n
\u00a0Ecological services have little chance of surviving without tight control by law of human activity affecting the environment. This option would be thought of as totalitarian by today\u2019s free societies, but this may be the only solution for us.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Self-government inevitably falls short, he claims, as men refuse to recognize and prioritize the common good. In fact, democracy proves the worst of all possible forms of government:<\/p>\n
\u00a0The institution of liberal democracy fails to adequately address the challenges of the environmental crisis, and by giving an even greater license to greed and individual self-satisfaction, it is potentially a more environmentally destructive social system than most other systems under which humans have lived.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Plato and Aristotle, along with America\u2019s founding fathers, might share Shearman\u2019s distaste for a pure democratic regime. Plato preferred a natural, virtuous aristocracy while Aristotle praised a polity for its stability; the American founders aimed at a representative republic meant to \u201crefine and enlarge the public view,\u201d as James Madison expressed it in \u201cFederalist No. 10.\u201d But the proper regime for a \u201csustainable\u201d society, Shearman and Smith argue, is a totalitarian dictatorship. A sustainablegovernment is autocratic and clamps down on that dangerous phenomenon, human freedom, and the opportunity for self-government. The model, Shearman suggests in a blog post, is China:<\/p>\n
\u00a0The People\u2019s Republic of China may hold the key to innovative measures that can both arrest the expected surge in emissions from developing countries and provide developed nations with the means to alternative energy. China curbs individual freedom in favour of communal need. The State will implement those measures seen to be in the common good. \u2026 Crises call for fast and sure action and an educated Chinese leadership could deliver.<\/p>\n
Shearman, to be sure, is a fringe figure. We do not know of other sustainability advocates, at least those who have advanced degrees and reside in academia, who go so far towards explicit advocacy of totalitarian government as the solution to climate change. But Shearman isn\u2019t necessarily that far from the mainstream.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Consider New York Times columnist and best-selling author Thomas L. Friedman. In a series of columns in 2009 and 2010, Friedman argued that the Communist Party in China really does offer an attractive model for addressing global warming. In one column he complained that skeptics in the U.S. had demonized the issue of climate change and had caused the Senate to \u201cscuttle\u201d an energy-climate bill. \u201cWhile American Republicans were turning climate change into a wedge issue, the Chinese Communists were turning it into a work issue,\u201d Friedman wrote. He quoted the chairwoman of the U.S. China Collaboration on Clean Energy who proudly explained, \u201cThere is really no debate about climate change in China.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0Friedman also appeared on Meet the Press on May 23, 2010, saying that he \u201cfantasized\u201d about making America \u201cChina for a day,\u201d so that we could \u201cauthorize the right solutions\u201d on \u201ceverything from the economy to the environment.\u201d He then backed away, saying that \u201cI don\u2019t want to be China for a second.\u201d But, \u201cOK, I want my democracy to work with the same authority, focus and stick-to-itiveness.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0The think tank Reason labeled Friedman\u2019s view \u201cauthoritarian envy.\u201d And that is probably what we should take away from both Shearman\u2019s and Friedman\u2019s expostulations. They and many other global warming alarmists are frustrated that the broader public and the duly elected legislatures in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and other nations have not embraced their cause. They imagine\u2014with rather different degrees of self-awareness\u2014that bypassing the structures of self-governance in favor of coercive authority would provide the \u201canswers\u201d they seek.<\/p>\n
\u00a0via NAS-Sustainability-Digital.pdf<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some intellectuals are arguing that democracy cannot effectively address climate change\u2013and, indeed, makes it worse\u2013and that what we need to save the planet\u00a0 is to eliminate political freedom and to turn towards a totalitarian government.\u00a0 Others don\u2019t go quite that far, but they hold up as the role model for effective government the People\u2019s Republic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,33,35],"tags":[426,428,2239],"class_list":["post-21193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-nature","category-philosophy-2","tag-china","tag-china-model","tag-totalitarianism"],"yoast_head":"\n
Totalitarianism reconsidered<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Some intellectuals are arguing that democracy cannot effectively address climate change--and, indeed, makes it worse--and that what we need to save the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2015\/04\/totalitarianism-reconsidered\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Totalitarianism reconsidered\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Some intellectuals are arguing that democracy cannot effectively address climate change--and, indeed, makes it worse--and that what we need to save the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2015\/04\/totalitarianism-reconsidered\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Cranach\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cranachblog\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-04-17T09:45:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-04-16T22:40:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gene Veith\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Gene Veith\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2015\/04\/totalitarianism-reconsidered\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2015\/04\/totalitarianism-reconsidered\/\",\"name\":\"Totalitarianism reconsidered\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-04-17T09:45:10+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-04-16T22:40:31+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1\"},\"description\":\"Some intellectuals are arguing that democracy cannot effectively address climate change--and, indeed, makes it worse--and that what we need to save the\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2015\/04\/totalitarianism-reconsidered\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2015\/04\/totalitarianism-reconsidered\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2015\/04\/totalitarianism-reconsidered\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Totalitarianism reconsidered\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/\",\"name\":\"Cranach\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1\",\"name\":\"Gene Veith\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Gene Veith\"},\"description\":\"Gene Edward Veith, Jr. is a writer and retired literature professor, serving as Provost Emeritus at Patrick Henry College. 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