Is democracy necessary for sustainable development - or does it get in the way? The political world is full of evidence that can be used to argue for either view. The lengthy and lively United States presidential competition between Senators Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama has, for example, engaged an unusually high proportion of citizens in debating some of the great issues of the day; it also offers the unprecedented and hopeful spectacle of all three candidates for the presidency acknowledging the vital importance of global climate change.
At the same time, the character of much of the campaign has so far been conducted - the huge amounts of money involved, the point-scoring, the attack ads, the media concentration on stray remarks and surface details - highlights the way that modern democratic conduct can ignore environmental issues at the very moment when they should be central to the debate.
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