Hi Nick
The devil is in the details; otherwise we all might just grab a soap box (or something sturdier and recyclable) and set up shop in Hyde Park.
Climate change is a fact of life and is much more than global warming and CO2, etc. Complexity science ( theory from those knowledge seeking academics) tells us that it is NOT reversible. We can not restore the earth and we cannot maintain a current lifestyle. Yes we have been energy profligates and environmentally sloven but democracy does not mean voting to create a Marxian society which can change the world into an idyllic pollution free planet. This is not an episode of Star Trek where Captain Picard can say "make it so, Mr Sulu, and the university will immediately transform into this committed, socially aware institution, if they knew what that was; and churn out graduates in environmentally sustainable suits marching like a robot army to save the planet, if anyone knew what that meant.

It is the university or the faculty whose research not only provided us with theory and practice that have informed us about the issues surrounding climate change but also many other issues both philosophical and pragmatic. Somewhere the university needs to decide what it does and doesn't do and whether all universities and their faculties do the same thing. If universities were just seekers of abstract knowledge, which you imply, then the progress that science has made, the benefits and problems that have accrued and the concerns would not be an issue. In fact, the university and its professors would be seen by the world as irrelevant and the faculty would all be filing for unemployment.
If the universities were irrelevant or not delivering what the "market" wants- students paying tuition, governments funding institutions and research, there would be competitive institutions seeking those funds that now go to universities. In a democratic society, citizens and their representatives vote with their pocket books. Didn't Shakespear say something about first killing all the lawyers. Maybe it might equally apply to philosophers and any other that seek "truth" or "knowledge".
saludos
tom
tom abeles

Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2010 17:30:31 +0100
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Subject: Climate Change and Wisdom-Inquiry
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Today in The Guardian in the UK there is an article by George Monbiot 
expressing despair at our failure to do anything effective about impending 
climate change.  It provoked me to send the following letter to The 
Guardian.
 
                
Best wishes,
 
                          
Nick
www.nick-maxwell.demon.co.uk
In connection with George Monbiot's article ("Climate change 
enlightenment....., 21st September), I have a suggestion.  Our only hope of 
tackling global warming successfully is to do it democratically.  This, in 
turn, requires that people in democratic countries have a good understanding of 
what the problem is, what the dangers are, and what we need to do to avoid the 
worst outcomes.  People need to have a clear understanding of what 
political steps need to be taken to ensure their governments take 
appropriate action.  This in turn requires a massive programme of public 
education - education about what the dangers are, what needs to be done to 
ensure rapid decline in CO2 
emissions world-wide, and what public action needs to be taken to ensure 
elected governments do what is required.  It is our institutions of 
learning that ought to be leading the way in this matter.  Given that 
global disaster stares us in the face, universities ought to be giving absolute 
priority to the task of provoking public education and political action.  
This is the key failure in our world today: the failure of universities to 
devote themselves to the task of helping us solve our global problems, 
above all the problem of impending climate change.  Instead, by and large, 
universities are devoted to the pursuit of knowledge.  It is of course this 
fantastically successful pursuit of scientific knowledge and technological 
know-how that has made it possible for us to develop modern industry and 
transport, which now threaten to destroy us.  We urgently need a 
revolution in our universities, so that they provide the help we need to deal 
with our governments, instead of facilitating ever greater CO2 emissions.