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Meanwhile, with bald obstructionism by the powerful U.S., the leaders of the world’s nations are struggling to create binding agreements to reduce the carbon fuels that cause climate change, or to make significant headway on wind, nuclear, tidal and solar alternatives.

It is time for radical new responses to looming climate disaster. But are enough people open to the big idea — the very big idea — that could make solutions more likely?

That is, the idea of a global government, a world democracy?

Photo by JOSH EDELSON / AFP/Getty Images

The concept, when not the subject of snickering, appals some. But it may be gaining international traction.

The idea of a world government, comprising federated states, has been advanced by luminaries including scientist Albert Einstein, playwright George Bernard Shaw, poet Emily Dickinson and Pope Emeritus Benedict.

A prominent political scientist who advised U.S. president Jimmy Carter, Frederick Schuman, argued in the 20th century that the only way to overcome war is to overcome the nation-state system — through political unification of the world.

In his 1941 book, Power Politics, Georg Schwarzenberger also said “international anarchy and war are inseparable,” so the “antidote (to war) is international government.” In her 1980s book, The Global Politics of the Environment, Lorraine Elliott argued something similar to save the ecosphere.

A world federation is the only way, advocates maintain, to end destructive competition between nations (and trans-national corporations), especially in the era of weapons of mass destruction and climate catastrophe. While many write off a global democratic legislature as a bizarre blue-sky fantasy, others are certain we’re doomed without it.