To avoid shortermism, an elected politician needs to be shielded from the fickle winds of popular opinion. We used to have such a condition in how we elected the U. S. Senate: until the 17th Amendment, U. S. Senators were elected by state legislatures. Now there are elected directly by the people. Despite the fact that they serve six years (unlike the Representatives, who serve only two years), they are still found alone on the Senate floor, looking right at the tv camera as they give a canned speech, and trying to pander to the public on the hotest "concern" or "issue" their staff has told them is of great concern to the public. The have become nothing more than mere Representatives who are elected every six years. Really revolting.

James, Jacksonville, Illinois 62650

Some people blame the rise of capitalism (whatever that is) - but capitalism, free trade, modern industry, rose in an age when people still had a moral sense that they should do something for the next generation - influence of Xianity and even more so of the family.

My wife pointed this out: in a small town, why was there a small monument put up years ago by some worthy town councillor and self-proclaimed merchant? Given the vast wealth of many entertainers and businessmen, why don't they build hospitals? museums? parks? they and their like used to, but they don't now. That's the difference. it is nothing to do with the political/economic system, it is just the collapse of personal morality in our present age.

Richard, London, England

Brown had a clear vision of some realisable good- the best garden in England, and he had a realistic prospect of achieving it. My problem with the Planetsavers is that they are demanding that we impoverish the present to achieve some miniscule mitigation of a process of climate change which is going to happen anyway: in other words, can the Planetsavers give us a success criterion? The global temp rising by 2.5deg in 30 years time rather than 3deg? So what?

Colin MacKinnon, Oxford, UK

The comments are almost as enlightening as the article. Particularly "philanthropy the next big thing". Never heard of Andrew Carnegie and his ilk - read some history.

Basically, though, non-one (including the columnist) has pointed out the correlation between the rise in short-term decision-making and the career politician. Time was (not so long back) when politicians entered the fray having already been successful at something else. The message is simple - build yourself a place in society before you seek to lead it. Today's politicians only have success at the ballot box to point to, so their personal security depends on voter approval. If they fail at politics, they have nowhere to go, nothing to fall back on. Who wants to hire people whose only acievement is winning a short-term popularity contest? Show us your CV, not just your manifesto.

KR, Stockport,

Short termism is not only a disease of politicians, it is now endemic amongst the captains of industry who, with a few exceptions, rarely crystal ball gaze 7 to10 or even 15 years ahead for the good of their organisations but are far more likely to spend their time looking at how they can manipulate their share options and/or the company's share price to their own personal advantage in the short to medium term. And just like politicians they seem to be able to vote themselves pensions and payoffs regardless of their performance.

David West, Templecombe, Somerset

Capability Brown was in fact concerned with his present interest. I think it was the Duke who was taking the longer view. Not many people can afford to be concerned with the long view and any concern in that context brings an inevitable vulnerability, besides possible expense and inconvenience. Naturally politicians tend to be short termers and those people who do think long term keep quiet about it. Climate change is a convenient political bone. Population is a much more pressing and serious problem, but is so politically sensitive and potentially revealing, in terms of intentions, that it is unscrupulously avoided.

Henry Percy, London, UK

To be fair short termism isn't confined to parliament and politicians. However, I would agree that there are very few politicians who appear to be in politics for what may be termed old fashioned reasons of wanting to make their country a better place and to improve the lot of the citizenship. Our own parliament has very few exceptions, and although this outlook may appear outmoded we have lost something because of this. Now we have a body of people that look and act like self aggrandising, careerist clones, giving mealy mouthed impressions of 'caring' and 'statesmanship' That is bad enough, but the constant hypocrisy is worse - no less so when it comes to green matters. In terms of consumption, and at times sheer avarice they take the breath away. Especially with their insistence on penalising ever other citizen for following their lead.

joe, Alexandria,

In the age of Empire, Great Britain was a ‘moral’ and paternalistic superpower over much of the world. Like a ‘good parent’ it fostered the characteristics of its subjects in its own image. But since its fall from grace, ‘the child’ can now see ‘the parent’ for what it always was – self-serving, morally scrofulous, and undeservedly superior.

isaac matiwa, london, zimbabwe

It is a truism that we get the politicians we deserve, so how did we deserve the current crop? In the UK, I think a lot of the blame can be laid at the door of education policy since the 1960s. It is blindingly obvious that getting rid of grammar schools has been an unmitigated disaster in terms of educational performance. We have an under-educated, infantilised population, more concerned with celebrity than with long term policy. Hence, we get a dissembling actor as our Prime Minister who himself does not understand how his Government has degraded and harmed this nation.

Richard Marriott, Kidderminster, Worcestershire

Camilla
It may be a broad-brush, but the advent of Capitalism has brought the focus back to "what can I gain for me within my life-time/time in office"
Of course this thought is gain financially.
The holistic thoughts of communism (everybody is equal - but turned out to be some were more equal than others in reality) never prevailed due to an inate human greed - self survival.
Will someone look beyond their nose - aka care about others and the future? No,

Danny of Adelaide, Echunga, Australia

There’s much food for thought here.

My favourite Capability Brown opus – Stourhead – was financed with banking profit from eighteenth century bubble excess, and that could be a pointer to the path of least resistance again being the market solution.

Some of the fortunes being built in our times look to be destined with greater thought for the future and for the common good as their legacy than is possible from the box within which most politicians are constrained.

With philanthropy as possibly the next big thing, and the superb early example of Bill Gates, I put my trust in this route. Those who have great achievement already to their account are far more likely to deliver than those who do not. Prudence, frugality, focus and vision frequently accompany creation and accumulation of great wealth, and the slippage inherent in political systems has a short term bias which can be at odds with the distant future.

dr venables preller, Warminster, UK

"Less is more" as the marketers say. I understand for instance why Mr Cameron is in no hurry to say anything. I don't like it but I understand it (and after all I'm not the one running for PM.)
Could it be though, that in our emphasis on spin and the machinations of politicians we have lost sight of how powerless they have become? Globalization and nationstate hood both contest the same grounds and while they both have an interest in a stable environment, one difficulty with a market system is the tendency and need to match and deal with the worst behaviors of the participants. Eg Rockefeller takes over.
Eg The most environmentally friendly groups are penalized and vanish. Unfortunately the cure for that seems to be regulation - something of a dirty word nowadays.

Glenn Schaefer, Holbrook, USA

Government should fund effective insulation of all poorly insulated homes, this would have a major impact on reducing energy bills & carbon emissions.

ian fairweather, Whitley Bay,

It is ironic that the title for this, is `Will someone look beyond their nose?' Because this is the very sin environmentalists are guilty of. They are happy to point out emissions from this/pollution from that, but thats where their thinking stops. Why do we have factories producing various emissions?, Why are we cutting down forests to make grazing land for cattle? Why are we depleting fish stocks in the sea? Why are we destroying huge tracts of rain forest to make palm oil plantations? Why are we flooding huge areas to generate hydro electricity? Why are clearing huge areas of land for housing? Why are we using up the Earths resources at an ever greater rate to make plastics and fuel etc?
The answer is simple, we are doing it to cater for the needs of a burgeoning human population. It makes no difference who does what, or where, this is only detail, look past everything to the bottom line. We are increasing population to a point beyond the Earths capacity to sustain us.

Peter East, Grays , Essex

Global warming has happened several times in the past and my understanding is that it results in a ice age. Since these ice ages happened without mankind putting sooty stuff into the atmosphere does anybody really, seriously, think we can stop it happening again even if we were to junk our cars tomorrow and immediately shut down every power station on the planet?

Roger Sykes, Christchurch, New Zealand

You can not blame China too much. Although China is nowadays the second biggest emissioner of carbon dioxide in the world, its government has put great efforts on curbing the blinded use of fossil fuel, such as halting the projects of building small fire power stations, and reducing the consumption of energy per every GDP growth. But the implement of all these needs a long period.

And global warming has begun long before the soaring of China's economy. It is a long process for carbon accumulation in the atmosphere. I think, western developed countries should take much more responsibilities, because of their development during the last century and the 19th century.

Thus, in my point of view, developed countries should help China alter its lagged technologies, but not just blames.

Daniel Guo, Shanghai, China

So reduce imports from China and reduce pollution from shipping and Chinese factories. Control population in Britain with tight immigration controls.

Encourage energy saving as in the 1970s.

Reduce house-building and multiple car-ownership.

Stop supermarket building and out of town car-based retail centres

None of this will be done - instead we wil get the 21st Century "Window Tax" or "Hearth Tax" to fund overbearing government

TomTom, Leeds, England