“We have reached a point of planetary emergency… climate is nearing dangerous tipping points. Elements of a perfect storm, a global cataclysm, are assembled… the oft-stated goal to keep global warming less than +2 C (+3.6 Fahrenheit) is a recipe for global disaster, not salvation.” ~ NASA’s Dr. James Hansen, global warming testimony to Congress, June 23, 2008

When this reporter pointed out that some scientists are writing books and saying in public that they believe this crisis is so serious that if humanity goes on with business as usual — not significantly cutting overall greenhouse gas emissions — it could seriously lead to the collapse of civilization, even in the lifetime of today’s children, he replied: “I think that is a correct assessment. People say that action should have been taken yesterday. If we take action today, it may not be too late.” ~ ABC News interview with Ban Ki-moon by Bill Blakemore, NY, Sept. 24, 2007

“This is an emergency and for emergency situations we need emergency action.”
~ U.N. Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, Antarctic visit, Nov. 12, 2007

“…our world faces a true planetary emergency.”
~ Al Gore, Global warming testimony to Congress, March 21, 2007

“With dryer vegetation and a warmer world and more dead vegetation because of the pests and beetles that are no longer held back by frost, the fires are out of control at record levels on every continent; the strength of the storms, the depth of the drought, the movement of tropical diseases into areas that never experienced them before. This is the result of a dysfunctional, INSANE global system, pattern that we have to change.”
~ Al Gore, Clinton Global Initiative, Sept. 25, 2008

“Congress…without debate and without a single hearing, (is) preparing to lift the moratorium on the development of oil shale, which would vastly multiply the amount of CO2 from every gallon of gasoline. This is utter insanity!”
~ Al Gore, Clinton Global Initiative, Sept. 25, 2008

“Since we met here last year, the world has lost ground to the climate crisis. This is a route. We are losing badly.” ~ Al Gore, Clinton Global Initiative, Sept. 25, 2008

“…I believe we’ve reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience.”
~ Al Gore, Clinton Global Initiative, Sept. 25, 2008

“Climate policy is characterized by the habituation of low expectations and a culture of failure. There is an urgent need to understand global warming and the tipping points for dangerous impacts that we have already crossed as a sustainability emergency that takes us beyond the politics of failure-inducing compromise. We are now in a race between climate tipping points and political tipping points.”
~ David Spratt, Philip Sutton, Climate Code Red, Australia, Published July, 2008

“We are not acting like people and organizations who genuinely believe that the world is at risk.  Therefore, we cannot take the measures required, nor can we be effective leaders.”
~ Ken Ward, Environmental and Communications Strategeist, Former Deputy Director, Greenpeace USA, as Quoted in Climate Code Red (D. Spratt, P. Sutton) - Excerpt: The Perils of Playing Nice, Published July, 2008

“…unless we adopt the strongest measures — emergency action — it will be too late. It is no longer a matter of how much more we can heat the planet, but how quickly can we cool it.” ~ David Spratt, Co-Author, Climate Code Red, Speech in Australia, Oct. 10, 2008

“Our changing climate is placing our planet in peril.”
~ U.S. President-elect, Barack Obama, Campaign Speech, Lansing, MI, Aug. 4, 2008

“If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.”
~ Chair of the IPCC, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Valencia, Spain, Nov. 17, 2007

* * *

Click Here to Read More About ecoSanity.org’s Climate Emergency Campaign

“A state of emergency is a governmental declaration that may suspend certain normal functions of government, alert citizens to alter their normal behaviors, or order government agencies to implement emergency preparedness plans.” — Wikipedia

* * * * *

Informed by the work of the world’s most eminent climate authority, NASA’s Dr. James Hansen, the essential book Climate Code Red by Australia’s David Spratt and Philip Sutton warns that only emergency international action far beyond business and politics as usual has any hope of concurrently halting man made greenhouse gas emissions, removing excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere AND actively cooling the Earth to the extent necessary — and within the rapidly closing window of opportunity available — to prevent potentially irreversible global catastrophe.

Alarmed by recent observations that suggest key arctic and methane release tipping points may have already been passed, and disturbed by the reality that no major environmental organization has dared to advocate for radical, systemic global economic and political reform…

ecoSanity.org announces an initiative rooted in scientific, economic, political, environmental and social honesty — the ecoSanity.org CLIMATE EMERGENCY CAMPAIGN — an ambitious, necessary and urgent effort to:

1) Expose the true extent of diluted, mainstream misinformation about ‘global warming‘ (more accurately, global heating, global climate destabilization, global weather extreming, global mass extinction, global ecocide) and re-frame it as the clear, present, unprecedented and accelerating threat that it is to the survival of all people and most species within the lifetimes of today’s children.

2) Advocate for an official international declaration of a state of global climate emergency to make possible the implementation of a rapid cultural transformation on a scale unlike anything humanity has ever faced before because millions are suffering and dying from a multitude of climate change related causes RIGHT NOW. Species are going extinct at a rate of 50,000 per year and, with 50% of all greenhouse gasses contributed by only 13% of the world’s total population, the way we (rich nations) have CHOSEN to live, KILLS the people of the poorest, undeveloped nations - those least responsible for the problem and least able to combat our shameful, negligent, on-going releases of global heating emissions. It is long past time to begin to attempt to atone for the crisis’ we have caused and knowingly continue to exacerbate.

3) Advocate for the rapid, systemic re-conception of our global political and economic processes toward just, equitable, post-partisan, post-carbon and post-rapacious, pathological consumerism incarnations that, unlike their current forms, can accommodate the sweeping action necessary to attempt to ensure our survival.

4) Work to help engage, empower and inspire an emergency international mass- mobilization to confront, mitigate, adapt to and, via a wide range and multitude of potential possibilities, reverse the devastating impacts, losses and social injustices that have both already been caused, and have yet to be unleashed, by the climate crisis.

5) Work to help influence participants of the Poznań (Poland, Dec. 2008) and Copenhagen (Denmark, Dec. 2009) U.N. Climate Change Conferences by encouraging aggressive, scientifically up-to-date, solution-and-survival-based emergency responses. We must not allow regression to the out-dated, terminally flawed, mass-suicidal underestimations of the political and policy-driven agendas that dictated the 2007 IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) conclusions on which the richest, most powerful, most morally culpable governments of the world have wrongly based their uniformly inadequate targets and inaction.

ECOSANITY.ORG’S CLIMATE EMERGENCY CAMPAIGN WILL:

SHORT TERM

- Highlight the importance of the United Nations Climate Conference in Poznań, Poland and advocate for EMERGENCY ACTION

- Unveil unignorable climate emergency visuals during our volunteer mobilization and participation in the Global Rally to Stop Global Warming (the Toronto installment of the Global Day of Action against Climate Change) on Sunday, Dec. 7th

- Stage a lead-up fundraiser for our Climate Emergency Campaign that will also help promote the Global Rally Event in Toronto

- Initiate a two-week Holiday Outreach Campaign to follow the Day of Action with our climate emergency message at its core

- Post video(s), blogs and endeavor to inform and involve as many people as possible as soon as possible

LONG TERM

- Add activist materials like banner designs and more for download

- Evolve what is also the beginning of our ECOSANE SOLUTIONS initiative that will compile and summarize only the most essential, actual science, solution and survival-based international proposals

- Follow up and expand upon all of the above between now and the December 2009 U.N. Climate Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark

Thanks for reading about, and supporting, our latest campaign.

For more info, or to participate with ecoSanity.org at any of the Toronto-based activities noted above, e-mail us at info@ecoSanity.org.

* * * * *

ESSENTIAL BACKGROUND

NASA’S JAMES HANSEN WARNS CONGRESS OF “PLANETARY EMERGENCY”

NASA’s James Hansen, the first leading scientist to warn of the dangers of global warming before a U.S. Congressional committee 20 years ago, recently returned to warn that the Earth’s climate is nearing dangerous tipping points, to call for a national carbon tax and to declare that the CEO’s of energy companies should be tried for crimes against humanity and nature.

“We have reached a point of planetary emergency…”, he said. “…climate is nearing dangerous tipping points. Elements of a perfect storm, a global cataclysm, are assembled…”. “…the oft- stated goal to keep global warming less than +2 C (+3.6 Fahrenheit) is a recipe for global disaster, not salvation.”

GORE: 100% RENEWABLE ENERGY IN AMERICA WITHIN 10 YEARS

Al Gore’s concern that America’s “dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuel” is at the core if its economic, environmental and national security problems recently compelled him to call for an urgent transition to 100% green energy in America within 10 years.

MASS EXTINCTIONS

Over the last 35 years, Species populations have declined an average of 27% (an extinction rate of 1% of all species per year - up to 10,000 x higher than the natural or ‘background’ rate!). With the rapidly accelerating impacts of global heating, there will be at least another 27% decline in far less time.

CLIMATE CODE RED

And in the new book, Climate Code Red: The Case For Emergency Action, Authors David Spratt and Philip Sutton argue that, in order to return to a ’safe climate’, not only must we reduce carbon emissions 100% as quickly as possible by declaring an urgent global state of emergency in order to get beyond the suicidal denial of ‘business as usual’ (Read: The Perils Of Playing Nice), we must also figure out a way to remove excess carbon from the atmosphere.

CCR: Co-Author David Spratt, Part 1 of 3 (Videos - Also watch Part 3)
CCR: 4 page PDF summary (when page loads, scroll to document)
CCR: The Perils of Playing Nice (Excerpt)
CCR: blogSanity (CCR Excerpts, Parts 1-5)
CCR: The Book

* * * * *

MORE RESOURCES

Climate Code Red: The Case For Emergency Action
Lester Brown: Plan 3.0
Report Back From Bali Climate Conference (blogSanity)
Elizabeth May’s Recount of Bali Climate Conference (Video)
ecoSanity.org Founder’s Imperative (Includes Videos)

U.N. CLIMATE CONFERENCES

UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change)
Bali, Indonesia, Dec. 2007
Poznań, Poland, Dec. 2008
Copenhagen, Denmark, Dec. 2009

ECOSANITY.ORG’S CLIMATE EMERGENCY ACTION KIT FOR DOWNLOAD

Coming Soon!

From www.fairvote.ca:

With thanks and acknowledgement to those who have already posted this info elsewhere and who we know would appreciate us passing it along.

1) The Green Party had 940,000 voters and sent no one to Parliament (813,000 Conservative voters in Alberta alone were able to elect 27 MPs).

2) In the prairies, Conservatives received double the vote of the Liberals and NDP, but took 7x as many seats.

3) 250,000 Conservative voters in Toronto elected no one. (more…)

With one more day remaining in our HARPER: RACE TO EXTINCTION Campaign, we are thankful to our courageous volunteers who committed to lay it on the line in our thwarted attempt to protest Alberta Premier, Ed (Tar Sands Kill!) Stelmach during his appearance in Toronto last week; to our more successful friends at Greenpeace who brought the protest to Harper - twice; to public figures like Green Party of Canada Leader, Elizabeth May, for taking on the broadcast consortium, speaking hard truths from the heart and shaking up the entrenched status quo; to the 3 Sunshine Walk eco-heroes making the sacrifice to walk - that’s right, walk! - from Toronto to Ottawa, collect petitions, letters and pictures that demand climate justice and deliver them to the Prime Minister’s Office on Oct. 20th; and to all our supporters for everything you do to help us spread our difficult, urgent message. (more…)

Scroll Down For Latest Updates!

“At present, the world’s atmosphere is on course to reach a state of UNSURVIVABLE EXTREMES within the lifetimes of today’s children.” Founder’s Imperative

Over the last 35 years, Species populations have declined an average of 27% (an extinction rate of 1% of all species per year - up to 10,000 x higher than the natural or ‘background’ rate!). With the rapidly accelerating impacts of global heating, there will be at least another 27% decline in far less time. And RIGHT NOW, the people of the most impoverished nations are suffering and dying from the devastating impacts of rich nation-induced climate change (increased poverty, spiking food prices, dwindling fresh water, starvation, disease, drought, desertification, ocean acidification, flooding, genocide, resource wars, etc.).

During the lead up to the most important federal election in Canadian history on October 14th, 2008, this blog will report our, and other organizations’, major efforts to expose Prime Minister, Stephen Harper’s criminal lack of aggressive, science and solution-based action on climate change. Our goal: to deter public support for environmentally negligent Conservative candidates and dethrone their leader! (more…)

Council of Canadians‘, Maude Barlowe, posted this essential video commentary on the disturbing secrecy and lack of accountability in the Harper’s government.

Two Greenpeace staff interrupted Prime Minister Stephen Harper during a speech in downtown Toronto with banners that read “Stop Global Warming: Support KYOTOplus” before being removed by police.

VIDEO - Canadian Press, Toronto Star
VIDEO - Details and video, Greenpeace Canada website

ecoSanity.org travelled to Ottawa to protest Prime Minister Stephen Harper and shoot this video featuring Green Party of Canada Leader, Elizabeth May’s historic, first-time participation in the Canadian federal election leaders debates at the National Arts Centre, Oct. 2, 2008 (night 2, english debate only).

ecoSanity.org shot/edited the video below in support of a non-violent direct action by Greenpeace Canada outside an event for Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, during which a Greenpeace campaign coordinator was roughed up and detained as he tried to display a small banner that read, “Stop Global Warming: Support KYOTOplus“.

Al Gore, speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative.
Courtesy: Brad Johnson, ThinkProgress.org.

“I believe that for a carbon company to spend money convincing the stock-buying public that the risk from the global climate crisis is not that great represents a form of stock fraud, because they’re misrepresenting a material fact.”

“…it is time for civil disobedience…”

“…half a billion dollars in the first eight months of this year promoting a lie that there is such a thing as clean coal. Clean coal is like healthy cigarettes. It does not exist… We need to have an alliance between the groups that are trying to lead the effort fighting the climate crisis and the groups that are fighting poverty and disease… CO2 anywhere is a threat to human civilization everywhere… Today, the US Congress are without debate and without a single hearing preparing to lift the moratorium on oil shale… this is utter insanity… We, the human species, have to solve this crisis.”