Public Participation in Designing Our Environmental Future.
1997
Priscoli, Jerome D.
A new democratic spirit and a new ecological spirit are two of the most powerful transformational forces in today's world. The interaction between these forces is driving much change in industrialized, reindustrializing, and even third world countries. The democratic spirit calls us to individual freedom, empowerment and transformation. The ecological spirit calls us to a new collective consciousness, collective restraint and a new relationship with nature. But will these forces work to bring people together or to create more adversarial relations? Both spirits confront us with a complexity at a time when increasingly we are mesmerized by 60-second sound bites. Both spirits confront us with new responsibilities to understand and accept uncertainty at a time when we in the industrialized world seem constantly to seek a risk- free environment. At a time when people complain about government and bureaucracy, it seems that both spirits confront us with dependence on technical experience and the concomitant increases in bureaucracy and regulation. Both spirits call us to anticipate and to employ long term vision. At the same time, we seem to be inextricably pushed by rapid rates of change into a short- term focus. In North America, we have been adapting traditional democratic institutions to the often conflicting challenges presented by these forces. Here in Central and Eastern Europe, you are responding to similar challenges while also experiencing a revolution in decision making institutions.
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