*** Please add your signature and affiliation to the letter below in support of the Global Climate Strike that Greta Thunberg and other youth climate activists have called for.

For more information about the strikes and following week of action, please visit: globalclimatestrike.net

For more information about how scientists can support the strike, please visit: marchforscience.org/events/scientists-join-the-global-climate-strike ***


THE LETTER:
 
The scientific community has done its best to outline the growing climate crisis and to show ways that society can move to meet the challenge. But beyond our work in the natural and social sciences we are also, like everyone else, people — of our cities and towns, our universities, our countries, and our planet.
 
As such, we will be joining with others on September 20 and 27 for the first all-ages climate strike and the week of action that follows.
 
For the last three decades, thousands of scientists from over 80 countries have participated in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC.) This scientific body was created to provide policymakers with regular scientific assessments on climate change, its implications and its potential future risks. Since its inception, IPCC has produced robustly researched, multiple peer-reviewed studies that have demonstrated that global heating is happening and that human activity is the primary cause.
 
Our research also shows that climate breakdown has serious implications for our health, environment, and economy. Dangerous heat waves are increasing in severity and frequency. Sea level rise is accelerating. Extreme rainfall are becoming more common in some areas. More severe droughts are occurring in others. Collectively, these effects pose a threat to the entire planet — including us, our communities, and our families.
 
The idea of climate striking began with Greta Thunberg in Sweden a year ago and has quickly spread across the world — in March 2019, 1.4 million children stayed away from school for a day to ask for climate action. We’re grateful for their leadership, but the burden of solving this problem should not rest solely on the shoulders of the youth.
 
And so inspired by the young people leading these strikes, we pledge to take part on September 20 or in the week that follows.
 
Those of us who teach may cancel our classes — or move them outside and turn them into teach-ins for the whole community. Those of us engaged in research will leave the lab bench or the computer screen for an afternoon and join other citizens in calling attention to the crisis.
 
We don’t have much time. It’s up to us to self-organize and contribute to the broader movement.  For information and resources on how to join in, go to globalclimatestrike.net and marchforscience.org/events/scientists-join-the-global-climate-strike.
 
This won’t be the last time we have to do such things. Climate change won’t be addressed in a day. But this will be a start.
 
Students have led and we must follow — in defense of the scientific truths our colleagues have discovered over the decades, and of the planet we love.

Signed,
XXX