

For two decades, leading environmental analysts have called for a World War II-scale transformation of our unsustainable fossil fuel-powered economy, in order to head off the threats of climate change and the global ecological crisis. The Executive Directors of the Sierra Club and Greenpeace, 350.org's Bill McKibben, and many other climate organizations endorsed this in a 2011 letter to President Obama calling for a "wartime-like mobilization."

This metaphor was also recently used by Bill Nye, who challenged Rutgers graduates to "preserve our world in the face of Climate Change and carry on as The Next Great Generation." Even Hillary Clinton has stated in 2007 that facing climate change is this generation's "Space Race. It is our home-front mobilization during World War II and it is our response to the Great Depression." (Though it's unclear whether she still stands by that rhetoric, and what, exactly she would propose to match it.)

The idea of a WWII-scale climate mobilization has also been advocated in Time magazine, in the New York Times by Thomas Friedman, and by the National Academy of Sciences Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate.

The Climate Mobilization is making history by campaigning for a WWII-scale response to climate change, which is widely understood as a necessary, yet politically unreachable goal.

The massive turnout for last September's People's Climate March proved that climate action is broadly popular among Americans — now The Climate Mobilization aims to popularize and build a mainstream movement for the scale of action that is urgently necessary.

Founded in September 2014 by Dr. Margaret Klein Salamon, a Harvard-educated psychologist and author, The Climate Mobilization uses a "Pledge to Mobilize" as its primary organizing tool for disrupting climate denial and passivity, in order to achieve this necessary mobilization.

The Climate Mobilization's Pledge to Mobilize calls on elected officials to immediately commence a World War II-scale, full employment mobilization to reduce national net greenhouse gas emissions 100% by 2025, and deploy comprehensive measures to draw down greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. The Pledge also calls on the federal government to prioritize the elimination of global net greenhouse gas emissions at wartime speed. The Pledge acknowledges both the consensus among scientists that climate change threatens the destruction of human civilization, as well as the increasingly obvious reality that we have already entered the era of dangerous climate change.

The Pledge to Mobilize concept was strengthened by a recent poll of American voters from the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, which found that 27% (which roughly translates to 41 million registered voters) are worried about global warming and would "definitely" or "probably" sign a pledge to vote only candidates who share their views, if asked to by a person they like and respect.

Pledge signers agree to support candidates who have also Pledged to Mobilize, and to spread the Pledge to others. This provides every American with an on-ramp into effective engagement on climate. The Pledge serves as a bridge between hyperlocal activism and national and international transformation. Mobilizers work within their own sphere of influence, recruiting friends, family, neighbors, book group, congregation, and coworkers to the mobilization.

With high-profile figures such as Ralph Nader, Winona LaDuke, Marshall Saunders (the founder of Citizens' Climate Lobby) and former Congressman Jim Bates having already taken the Pledge, The Climate Mobilization is growing in membership and power. Michael Mann, a world-class climate scientist and a lead author on the IPCC Third Assessment, recently joined The Climate Mobilization's advisory board, and Alina Valdes, a Democratic candidate in the 25th District Congressional race in Florida recently signed TCM's petition calling for national Climate Mobilization.

According to Klein Salamon, The Climate Mobilization is deadly serious about saving civilization from climate disaster: "Our mission is to commence a WWII-scale climate mobilization that transitions our energy and agricultural systems to carbon neutrality at emergency speed. That is the only possible way to restore a safe climate, and we must accept nothing less."

The Pledge to Mobilize impresses upon its supporters the existential threat that our civilization faces in the absence of drastic action.

Klein Salamon asserts that the crisis in Syria, the drought in California, and the increase in extreme weather represent only the very beginning of the crisis our planet will face without a full-scale mobilization.

"We are in acute danger. Scientists know this. The Pentagon knows this. All of us know this, on some level. Now we must face the frightening reality. Now is the time for heroism."

There is no more burnable carbon, and there is no time left to wait. The time is now for Climate Mobilization. This will be made clear throughout the presidential primaries, according to The Climate Mobilization's deputy director, Ezra Silk, a reporter located in Southern Maine.

"June 14 is the opening salvo of a much broader political campaign," says Silk. "Politicians of every persuasion will soon be faced with the urgent call for 'Climate Mobilization Now!'"

"Do our representatives have the fortitude to act in defense of civilization, the natural world, the young, and our nation's highest values? That is the question of our time."

More information on each event can be found at theclimatemobilization.org.

Originally published at theclimatemobilization.org