About ClimateEmergency.com

Purpose

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.

The people behind this site

This website is a personal initiative of, and funded by, Paul and Michelle Gilding. Paul and Michelle have a long and broad perspective on these issues, having been involved in sustainability since the 1970’s, as activists, parents, entrepreneurs and business owners, thought leaders, advisers to global corporations, philanthropists and farmers. This website forms part of a range of activity designed to support society’s transition to sustainability and in particular to shift attitudes to climate change from being considered a crucial global issue, to it being accepted and responded to as The Climate Emergency.

Paul and Michelle:

• Have owned, operated and co-founded a number of social enterprises - both businesses and non profits.

• Co-founded and support The Changing Markets Foundation in London, which supports campaigns that accelerate market solutions to the global sustainability challenge;

• Sponsor a Prince of Wales’s Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge’s Institute for Sustainability Leadership, focused on radical innovation for sustainability. Paul is also a visiting Fellow at this institute;

• Live on a farm in rural Tasmania.

Michelle:

• After a career in activism and communications, left paid work in 1998 to raise three children now aged 21, 19 and 17.

• Manages the family’s mixed farm which operates on principals of regenerative agriculture and supplies produce to Port Cygnet Cannery.

• Developed the Port Cygnet Cannery as the site for a new family food and tourism venture which aims to support and promote local agriculture out of a converted fruit canning cooperative in Cygnet.

• Co-founded with Natalie Isaacs, the 1 Million Women NGO which advocates for personal action on climate change and sustainability.

Paul:

• Has written a range of seminal papers and articles on the Climate Emergency including Scream Crash Boom (2005) The One Degree War Plan (2009); The Mother of All Conflicts (2012) along with the book The Great Disruption (2011) which achieved wide acclaim and was featured in major media outlets around the world, including in the New York Times where Pulitzer Prize winning writer Tom Friedman concluded, "Ignore Gilding at your peril".

• Is an advisor to a variety of leading global companies that have an established commitment to leadership on sustainability and a commitment to advocacy for stronger policy and market action in this area. This is delivered by paid advisory work, personal relationships and by serving on a number of advisory boards. Examples in the past 5 years include Unilever, DSM, Fonterra, Barry Callebaut and BHP Billiton.

• Is an advisor and supporter of various non profits and think tanks that are engaged in The Climate Emergency. Examples including the The Climate Mobilisation (USA), Extinction Rebellion (UK) and the Breakthrough Climate Centre (Australia).

• Is the Co-founder and a Board members of The Changing Markets Foundation in London, which supports campaigns that accelerate market solutions to the global sustainability challenge.

Contact Us

ClimateEmergency.com is a dynamic site that will evolve to reflect the progress of the Climate Emergency. As such, we encourage feedback on this site. Additional references, resources, organisation acting on the Climate Emergency, corrections and suggestions for improvement are welcomed. If you would like to recommend content for this ClimateEmergency.com, please include links in the message field.