
Action Campaigns: Race 2 Survival (R2S) – Main
► About the Race 2 Survival (R2S) Campaign
► What Does the 2 Stand For?
► 2100: An Unlivable World?
► 2009: We've Already Gone Way Too Far
► Now. Fast. Together!
Climate Emergency 2008
Tar Sands Kill
Harper: Race to Extinction
TIFF: Toronto Int'l Film Festival
"So they go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent."
~ Winston Churchill
Now. Fast. Together!
You may have noticed we have not hesitated to be frank about the dire state of the situation. But some question this undiluted approach and worry that it may risk the sense of hope and inspiration they think people require in order to be motivated enough to act.
In an essential guest blog post, Fear is a GOOD thing and hope is NOT an action verb, Julie Johnston of Greenhearted.org, finds it counterintuitive that environmental groups and activists keep saying we must not scare the public or spread "doom and gloom."
She supports educator and author, Thomas Homer-Dixon's assertion that, contrary to conventional wisdom, fear is GOOD and that we should embrace it, not scorn it.
"Fear serves a vital purpose," Homer-Dixon writes. "Our ancestors evolved the biological capacity for fear because it helped them survive, which allowed them to pass their genes to future generations. Fear signals something might be wrong in our surroundings and that we could be in danger… And we should listen to those whose fears might help them see dangers earlier and more clearly than the rest of us."
Julie concludes: "…hope is not an action verb – and hoping, like praying, is not going to safeguard the future. Take hopeful action, be an optimistic activist, but TAKE action and BE an activist!
As a world community, we don't know the full potential of what we COULD do to confront this crisis because we have not yet begun to try on a massive scale.
But if we DID try, as if the survival of our species and most other life depended on it, and if we were to commit all of our collective abilities to the task, multiple carbon cutting, clean energy 'miracles' would, no doubt, be discovered.
With global emissions accelerating; climate tipping points both near and passing; feedback loops kicking in; many key estimations to date shown to be extreme and dangerous underestimates; and the lives of most people and species at stake THIS CENTURY, it is clear that we are -– ALL OF US –- in a MORTAL RACE AGAINST TIME.
And for the rapidly growing number of families in the most impoverished regions —- those least responsible for the problem and least able to cope — who've already been displaced from their homes and/or seen loved ones KILLED by the devastating social and environmental impacts of climate breakdown, staying alive is a daily struggle RIGHT NOW.
climateye.com's Climate Emergency: Race 2 Survival Campaign (R2S) is a bold, new call for the rejection of 'business as usual' in favour of an urgent international declaration of a state of global emergency. Why? To allow for the greater than WW2-equivalent, global mass- mobilization necessary to REVERSE our accelerating course toward the all too real, potentially unsurvivable threat of runaway climate collapse within the lifetimes of today's children.
Every effort must be made RIGHT AWAY to learn the basic science, spread the word like a virus, organize and mobilize to inspire IMMEDIATE, RESPONSIBLE, EXPANSIVE ECOLOGICAL REFORM ON A MASSIVE SCALE, WORLDWIDE.
We must all PARTICIPATE. We must all SPEAK OUT. We must all DEMAND CHANGE.
Get informed. Get inspired. Get involved and help to motivate bold, new, transformative approaches and just, resilient, EMERGENCY RESPONSES to the climate crisis — FAST.
Join the Emergency Movement. Join the Race — 2 Survival!