From December 3 to 14, 2007, international representatives and heads of states will meet in Bali, Indonesia to address the challenge of setting new parameters of human activity in preparation for the expiration of the Kyoto Protocol in 2012. The mandate is to limit and prevent further unbridled greenhouse gas emissions into the planet's atmosphere to prevent the unimaginable from becoming the inevitable.
The international environmental movement, in more than 39 countries, will mobilize at the time of the conference, on December 8th. The planetary community is calling for courageous and unprecedented decisions from governments, from institutions, from all of us -- to change our course. We must develop binding and effective limits on carbon emissions and a global strategy for conversion to renewable energy sources, such as the sun, the wind and the sea, along with appropriate rewards and deterrents.
In the United States, we have the opportunity -- and the responsibility as one of the major contributors to the crisis -- to make December 8th an overwhelming manifestation of hope and determination in every community throughout the land - where we live. As human beings, conscious of our unique impact on this beloved earth, we have the duty and the potential of finding our way out of this danger, to change the footprint to an imprint of hope.
Can we come together across the usual barriers that divide us for a new expression of our unity as planetary citizens?
Global warming carries unprecedented implications for the food, water, health and security of the Earth and our children as the temperatures become intolerable and the sea levels rise.
We see the unequal impact of the climate crisis and natural disasters on the poorest, most vulnerable countries and communities, reminding us those natural disasters are never simply that. We must work for justice on every level as we call for a new way of being on this earth together, and understand how power and privilege play determining roles on even the impact of a storm, a drought, a fire.
We are calling for a day of reflective action, information, community participation; expressing urgency and possibility in an explosion of imaginative shapes, voices and forms.
Let us make December 8th a day our children and grandchildren and their children will look back on as a time when we stopped and started again, with renewed imagination and clarity, unified in caring for this natural world -- human, plant, animal - water, air, earth - ourselves and one another.
We call on all to put aside business as usual on December 8th
Because We Love This Earth...