I believe in justice, equality, fraternity, democracy and a human future on a living planet. I believe that rivers, lakes, forests, the oceans, flora and fauna of many sorts have natural rights that should be considered equivalent to those of humans and protected as fully. 

Those values may or may not be compatible with bourgeois liberal democracy, certainly not as it's come to be defined by globalized consumerism, which has brought on a geologically significant global extinction event and disrupted the climate  to the point that it threatens the existence of human society.

Put as succinctly as possible, phony democracy like that is unsustainable. We can either become genuinely democratic or face a degraded existence on a greatly diminished planet.  Brooks doesn't get this.