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The big leap forward in behavioural change has to be an acceptance that economic growth in its present form threatens our survival. It is not a simple matter of changing to renewables which will bring an explosion in employment and continuing growth. Climate change is but one of a network of factors destroying the ecological services which support the world's burgeoning population. It is questionable whether the leaders elected through liberal democracy have the ability to understand these complex issues, and indeed the commitment to act upon them.

Plato recognised the problems that would befall democracy. The needs of the populace would not be resisted by those who sought power; power is best exerted by those (experts) who did not seek power.

Clearly expertise is needed in this complex world issue, but how do we get there in the face of "mediocracy"?. The first step is to float the issue; and indeed we find that some intellectuals are thinking this way, though cautiously - so as to avoid being labelled as revolutionary.

Václav Havel, former president of the Czech Republic, says: "I don't agree with those whose reaction is to warn against restricting civil freedoms. Were the forecasts of certain climatologists to come true, our freedoms would be tantamount to those of someone hanging from a 20th-storey parapet" (see "Our Moral Footprint", New York Times, 27 September 2007).

Tim Flannery (in "The Weather Makers: Our changing climate and what it means for life on earth") contrasts the freedom of humanity with the need for a more directive leadership.

The case for an authoritarianism of experts has been explored with the philosophical conclusion that continuing absolute liberty cannot be preferable to life (see David Shearman & Joseph Wayne Smith, "The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy," Praeger, 2007). It may well be non-western states (including China) will find ways to deliver while the west continues to display its extreme liberty with ineffectual debate and a surrender to powerful interests in its grinding democratic institutions.