The word for "crisis" in Chinese, the saying goes, is both "danger" and "opportunity." The world faces a climate crisis: temperatures are expected to rise at a pace unknown in recorded history. The pace of change in the earth's climate is directly related to the pace of combustion of fossil fuels--oil, gas and coal. Climate change is a serious, emerging threat to the stability of the planet's ecosystems, and a particular threat to the world's poorest people.

While the scenarios of life in a greenhouse are frightening, the flip side of this crisis is that it represents an unprecedented opportunity: to reorient energy-related investments, using them to provide abundant, clean, safe energy for human needs.

The challenge of climate change is: to steer the globe, and particularly the financial investments of the wealthy countries, away from support for fossil fuels and toward support for energy efficiency and renewable energy; to provide the resources for the energy needs of the poorest, North and South, and to strive to meet those energy needs using renewable energy resources and non-renewable energy efficiently and equitably; and to ensure the poorest are protected from present and future unjust costs associated with climate change and an inevitable transition away from fossil fuels.

If the global community rises to this challenge--a challenge SEEN is actively engaged in--we will ultimately move humankind toward a more environmentally sound, equitable, economically and politically stable future.

Links and Resources:

For information on the latest science on climate change, please visit the Union of Concerned Scientists webpage.

For a fascinating and engaging 10-minute multimedia presentation on the politics and science of climate change, produced by Ross Gelbspan, journalist and author of "The Heat is On," visit: http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?id=3192&method=full

Climate Action Network is the recognized umbrella NGO in the international negotiations, through which environmental groups collaborate on climate change issues worldwide.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change's (UNFCCC) page has a valuable information kit on many aspects of climate change.

Common questions about climate change are answered by United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization: http://www.ipcc.ch

The United States Environmental Protection Agency's web page on climate change.

Greenpeace International has compiled an extensive list of frequently asked questions regarding climate change. Find it at http://www.greenpeace.org/~climate/science/reports/climatefaq.html