The purpose of this site is to be a resource for people working on or seeking to understand the Climate Emergency concept. We intend to cover why an emergency response to the climate crisis is needed; what it would mean in practice to have an emergency mobilisation and what the implications of such a mobilisation would be – for example its impacts on the economy and on geopolitics. We do this by providing an introduction to the concept in easy to access summaries, to introduce topics, and then recommendations and links to further research materials. While we are advocates for a Climate Emergency approach, this site is not an activist campaigning or advocacy initiative. There are many organisations already doing that very well and we don’t wish to replicate that work. We will provide information on these organisations and how to connect to them for those who wish to do so.
How to use this site
ClimateEmergency.com is a collation and discussion of the work, research and opinion of experts and thought leaders. While we have opinions and will express them, through the publication of our own and others’ commentary, we aim to make ClimateEmergency.com as non-partisan and evidence based as we can. We also provide referral points to organisations through which people can act further, noting that there are many different and useful ways for people to engage in treating climate change as an emergency, through many different types of organisations. This could be through activism, academia, business, community groups, the military, policy and local government.
This information on this site it organised into two sections:
1. Information that helps users understand the climate emergency and emergency response. This is the bulk of the site. This information can be accessed through the introduction to each topic on the home page or through the left hand menu at the head of each page. In this section we draw on the work of experts and thought leaders from different disciplines to help answer key questions about the climate emergency.
2. Resources that support users to engage in the climate emergency. This section supports readers who want to learn more deeply about the issue or get more involved in advocating for a climate emergency mobilisation. These resources can be found through the right hand menu at the head of each page. In this section we have collated key Climate Emergency resources and identified a range of types of organisations acting on the climate emergency in different ways.
Our view
An earlier version of a paper which inspired this website, had the title “Choosing Extinction”. It did so to emphasise the power and the significance of the choice we now face, but also to emphasise that this, is indeed, a choice. Choosing extinction is the path we are on today. There is considerable debate whether that extinction applies to us or ‘just’ to millions of other species. But either way a massive extinction event is on the way, unless we choose to stop it. We get to decide. To decide whether humanity will continue on its long social, cultural and economic path of exploring and fulfilling our potential. Whether to continue forward and see what we are capable of. We also get to decide how many of the world’s 8.7 million species we will allow to live and continue on their evolutionary path and how many we will choose to destroy, presumably never to come back. Perhaps including our own. We are well advised on the risks and they are clear and material. Not certain, but nor unlikely.
Despite this we sit idly by, paralysed in various ways by ignorance, despair, delusion and fear. There should be no surprise in this, it is the path we have always taken to existential risk. WWII continues to be the clearest example. However, in this case, the existential risk applies to our whole planetary civilisation. With this, there is no historical parallel. Not since the dinosaurs. But unlike the dinosaurs, we are consciously aware of the risks, we fully understand them and we can choose to address them. We know exactly what we need to do. We cannot be certain of success if we act, but we can be pretty certain of catastrophe if we don’t. Some argue it is hopeless, that there is no chance of success. In war this attitude would be considered treason – aiding and abetting the enemy. Such people have nothing to contribute to the world on this topic. They should cease all public comment and keep to themselves. Some argue we may not succeed, that we may have left it too late. They are correct, we may have. But there is clearly no evidence – and there cannot be any ahead of time – that we have done so. There is therefore no reason for this possibility to in anyway influence our decisions or actions now. What we have to do now is simple. We have to decide – do we choose extinction, or do we choose to fight it? To rebel against it. To do all we can possibly do, to get humanity on a different path. That is our choice. And each and every one of us now gets to decide.