The folks over at Extinction Rebellion recently asked one of our staff to write a blog for them discussing some the arguments for a sortition-based democracy. We've done just that - check it out!
When it comes to climate change, Sortition Foundation doesn't take a position on how society should respond to the crisis... With one exception: we think society should make decisions about climate change using sortition! (No surprise there: we think society should use sortition to select decision makers for every major issue.)
In light of that, we are very happy to back XR's third demand that "the government create and be led by a Citizens' Assembly on Climate and Ecological Justice". Indeed, we'd go further and suggest that parliament itself be replaced with a permanent, standing Citizens' Assembly, a House of Citizens. Given politicians keep making bad decisions, surely it's time that ordinary people are given a go.
Public domain image from Hastings Press, via Wikimedia Commons. The Suffragettes rebooted democracy once. Let's do it again!