One Blue Marble

How should we engage you, to convince you to find out the facts about global warming? It's important, because we really, really need you. We need everybody.

If this was a Hollywood blockbuster, the clock would be ticking off the last 10 seconds as the sweat-spattered heroine makes the ultimate decision... Cut the red wire, or the green one... as the fate of humanity hangs in the balance.

It really is that serious.

We've never been much for fear mongering or exaggeration, but — frankly — we're scared shitless by the rapid pace of climate change. Events that scientists were predicting would happen in 2060 are starting to happen today, and the media is doing an inept job of telling the world about this crucial story. The financial crisis? Bah! That was the pesky little villain the heroine dispatched in the opening scene just to show you that she really is something fierce. Truth to tell, the financial crises is a mosquito. It's nothing compared to what's coming down the pike.

Global Warming

Climate change will devastate our new world economy, but that won't be the half of it. Unless we change our ways, large chunks of countries in the developing world will be literally wiped off the map. We face a future in which wars are cruelly commonplace, as people in the developing world fight over scarce resources and marginal farm land; a world in which hundreds of millions won't have access to clean water; a future in which North American catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina are so frequent that they’ll garner just a few column inches below the fold on page nine.

To survive, your children will be forced to become unfeeling automatons, or they’ll live with an eternal heartache that makes their existence just this side of unbearable.

So we must choose another path, a path of sustainability and clean, renewable energy from sun, wind and waves. It won't be easy, but neither will it be as hard as you think. We have the potential to remake our world, to clean the air in our towns and cities, and provide a better standard of life in the developing world and alleviate the most pressing issues of poverty. But it will take all our creativity, all our ingenuity, and some good old fashioned hard work.

As far as we know, humanity is unique. Will we rise to the greatness of our stories and myths when faced with insurmountable odds, or will we allow civilization to diminish and fade? We need a Star Trekian future.

We'd better begin. Now. As in right now. Changing light bulbs and recycling just won't cut it. We need across-the-board changes to usher in this brave new world.

Grinnel Glacier

And that's why we've launched One Blue Marble. We haven't inherited this world from our ancestors, we're borrowing it from our children, and our grandchildren. But this site isn't just about climate change, for investment in clean technology and renewable energy also has the potential to give us a strong and resilient economy. We won't be able to afford the things that makes Canada and the United States great places to live unless we prepare for a future based on renewable energy.

By its very nature, we need to be hard on conservative governments but — interestingly — that's only true in North America. Change is coming. Under President Barack Obama, the United States will quickly transition to become a world leader in renewable technology. But many right-wing states in the union are still supporting coal — the worst of the fossil fuels — and destroying the environment. In the Great White North, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is condemning Canada to a 19th century economy by refusing to play a constructive role on the road to Copenhagen — the 2009 international climate change summit.

But we don't hate Conservatives. We just have an issue with governments that have no vision for the future. We believe that governments that trash the plant — our one blue marble — are taking the easy road, and sacrificing the welfare of our children for political expediency and partisan politics.

Throughout the world, many Conservatives possess a strong sense of responsibility and ownership for the problems that we've created in becoming a wealthy society. In the UK, Lord Nicholas Stern, former Chief Economist for the World Bank, has become a passionate advocate for tackling global warming now, when the costs are just affordable, rather than 10 or 15 years down the road, when they will bankrupt us and millions will suffer. Angela Merkel, Germany's conservative Chancellor, is promising to cut carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2020, because it's a moral imperative, and it makes smart business sense.

Global warming isn't a conservative, or a liberal issue; it shouldn't pit right-wingers against left-wingers; or throw the Gucci crowd into the Battle Royale ring with the treehuggers.

Climate change is a matter for all humanity. We need to work together, and become the change we need to see in the world.

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