A shepherd moves his herd as he looks for green pasture near the village of Sirohi in Rajasthan, northern India.

Current number of signatories: 13,766 from 156 countries, World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency: French Version and French Supplement, World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency (Condensed Version), William J. Ripple, Christopher Wolf, Thomas M. Newsome, Phoebe Barnard, William R. Moomaw, xxxxx scientist signatories from xxx countries. The existing Open Comments threads will continue to exist for those who do not subscribe to Independent Premium.

The number of ocean "dead zones" - places where little can live because of pollution and oxygen starvation - has increased by 75%.

Our vital importance and role comes from scientists' unique responsibility as stewards of human knowledge and champions of evidence-based decision-making. You can find our Community Guidelines in full here. A factory in China is shrouded by a haze of air pollution. "By failing to adequately limit population growth, reassess the role of an economy rooted in growth, reduce greenhouse gases, incentivise renewable energy, protect habitat, restore ecosystems, curb pollution, halt defaunation, and constrain invasive alien species, humanity is not taking the urgent steps needed to safeguard our imperilled biosphere.". A host of environmental calamities are highlighted in the warning notice, including catastrophic climate change, deforestation, mass species extinction, ocean "dead zones", and lack of access to fresh water. When you click “sign the article” and add your name, you will be indicating that you generally agree with our article, helping get this message to world leaders. New signatures may take several weeks to appear in the list of signatories because each name will first need to be validated. Oregon State University has formally endorsed the Scientists’ Warning with a joint resolution (pdf) of the faculty senate and the student government. Governmental bodies are making climate emergency declarations.

They cite some hopeful signs, such as the decline in ozone-depleting CFC gases, but report that, from a global perspective, our “changes in environmental policy, human behavior, and global inequities… are far from sufficient.” And "scientists, media influencers and lay citizens" aren't doing enough to fight against it, according to the letter. It allows our most engaged readers to debate the big issues, share their own experiences, discuss real-world solutions, and more. The climate crisis has arrived and is accelerating faster than many scientists expected.
You may not agree with our views, or other users’, but please respond to them respectfully, Swearing, personal abuse, racism, sexism, homophobia and other discriminatory or inciteful language is not acceptable, Do not impersonate other users or reveal private information about third parties, We reserve the right to delete inappropriate posts and ban offending users without notification. World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency, Modeling the Climate Crisis with En-Roads, New book stresses urgency of action on climate crisis, The faulty science, doomism, and flawed conclusions of Deep Adaptation, Spaceship Earth: An Introduction to Earth System Science. Twenty-five years ago, the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, D.C. along with over 1,700 scientists from around the world, including the majority of then-living Nobel laureates in the sciences, drafted and signed the first World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity. Global carbon emissions and average temperatures have shown continued significant increases. Water levels in reservoirs, like this one in Gers, France, have been getting perilously low in areas across the world affected by drought, forcing authorities to introduce water restrictions. In many parts of the world, glaciers have been in retreat, creating dangerously large lakes that can cause devastating flooding when the banks break. Writing in the online international journal BioScience, the scientists led by top US ecologist Professor William Ripple, from Oregon State University, said: "Humanity is now being given a second notice ... We are jeopardising our future by not reining in our intense but geographically and demographically uneven material consumption and by not perceiving continued rapid population growth as a primary driver behind many ecological and even societal threats. We suggest six critical and interrelated steps that governments and the rest of humanity can take to lessen the worst effects of climate change, covering 1) Energy, 2) Short-lived pollutants, 3) Nature, 4) Food, 5) Economy, and 6) Population.
Schoolchildren are striking. College of Forestry, Oregon State University, COVID-19 Shows How Ecosystems and Human Health Intersect, Climate change fears propel scientists out of the lab and into the streets, Uniting on the climate: the businesses working together to help the planet, The Climate Anxiety Decade: How We Came to Terms With Our Warming World in the 2010s, Contact us with your comments, questions and feedback.