This paper looks ahead to the coming climate change crisis and to reflect on its political implications. It asks how states will manage, and in some cases even survive, when the crisis becomes a worldwide emergency. In many cases, these conditions will lead to states of emergency that will lend themselves to authoritarian forms of rule. While more authoritarian forms of governance need not be inevitable everywhere, given the current state of preparation for these environmental conditions under liberal democratic regimes, it does not seem wrong to argue that it will be likely. As these are all conditions that are generally beyond the scope and consideration of contemporary discussions in environmental political theory and social science generally, empirical or normative, beginning to think about them certainly cannot be misplaced.
For these reasons, this paper returns to the assessments of the earlier arguments of writers such as Ophuls, Heilbroner and Hardin who foresaw the rise of an authoritarian state to deal with an environmental crisis out of control. Against the realities of severe crisis, there is plenty of reason to worry that forms of survivalism will further push democracy to the wayside, especially given the weak state of contemporary democratic governance around the world. Supporting this will be the need for a centrally planned economy to ration economic goods and scarce resources, as well as the search for technological fixes which will strengthen the technocratic mindset, which has never shown enthusiasm for citizen participation and democratic opinion. The paper argues that there is thus a need to rethink environmental political theory by moving away from the abstract, theoretical emphasis on deliberative democracy to focus on environmental political strategy in the face of power.
