Heightened awareness and alarmism about climate change have prompted politicians, public intellectuals and scholars alike to reconsider the political values, structures and institutions with which to confront it. A number of recurring directions of thought and experiment may be distinguished. For one, ecological authoritarianism – the strand of thought that proposes to abolish or suspend democracy for the sake of achieving ‘green’ goals – testifies to the perceived shortcomings of democratic politics when it comes to immediate collective environmental action.¹ Alternatively, and on the flipside of the same coin, democratic innovations (e.g. citizens’ assemblies, mini-publics and juries) are contemplated to improve popular input, inclusive and deliberative decision-making, and, ultimately, democratic legitimacy in the realm of environmental politics.² Meanwhile, technological solutionism has permeated democratic and non-democratic policy-making alike, adding to the fragile balance of immediacy, legitimacy and technology in contemporary climate politics.

中文翻译：

---

环境与民主：简介

对气候变化的高度认识和危言耸听促使政治家、公共知识分子和学者重新考虑应对气候变化的政治价值观、结构和制度。可以区分许多反复出现的思想和实验方向。一方面，生态威权主义——为了实现“绿色”目标而提议废除或暂停民主的思想链——证明了民主政治在立即采取集体环境行动时的缺陷。¹或者，在同一枚硬币的另一面，民主创新（例如公民大会、小公众和陪审团）被考虑以改善大众意见、包容性和审议性决策，并最终提高环境领域的民主合法性政治。²与此同时，技术解决主义已经渗透到民主和非民主政策制定中，加剧了当代气候政治中即时性、合法性和技术之间脆弱的平衡。