Community, Democracy, and the Environment

Insuring the continued integrity of the global environment may now be linked to the ability of humans to strengthen existing, and develop new, opportunities and institutions in which to democratically explore shared ethics about the future. The nature of the ties we have to one another in our communities, the quality of the attachments we have to our political institutions, and the presence or absence of public spaces within which to deliberate about our deepest concerns, may have profound implications for the biosphere. Community, Democracy, and the Environment looks the changing character of community and polity in the United States. The book proposes the development of a realm of civil ethics where citizens democratically deliberate about values, reviews the changing orientations of Americans to the environment and environmental policy, and examines why a new direction in energy policy is critical to our environmental future. The book concludes with some directions for how humans may better learn to share the future with each other and the other species with whom we share the planet.