Climate Crisis — Urgent Action Needed Now!

April 23, 2008

Statement initiated by participants in the Climate ChangeSocial Change conference, Sydney, Australia, April 11-13, 2008

The following statement was started by the participants in the Climate ChangeSocial Change conference. It is being distributed to environmental, trade union, Indigenous, migrant, religious and community organizations to help build the movement against global warming.

Anyone who agrees with it is welcome to add their signature, and an updated list of signatories will be issued on a regular basis. To add your name, email climatechange.socialchange@gmail.com


1. The latest climate science shows that the global warming crisis is already here
The evidence about global warming is more alarming than ever. It is likely that critical “tipping points” once believed to lie in the future have already been passed (see Climate Change and Trace Gases, by James Hansen et al, 2007, available at http://www.carbonequity.info/):

Arctic ice loss reached 20% by extent over the past two years as against 7% a decade over the period between 1979 and 2005; the volume of Arctic summer ice is estimated to have fallen by 80% over the last 40 years; glacier movement in Greenland is speeding up, producing massive “ice quakes”; in Antarctica the 2002 collapse of the Larsen B ice shelf and the recent splitting of the Wilkins ice shelf raises the spectre of the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet (and sea levels rising 5 metres).

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