SATURDAY: International Climate Action Day will see a Climate Rally in Victoria with “All Star” Speakers List

For Immediate Release

Hundreds of participants will take part in “Harper’s Backwards March” and play “Pin the Heart on Harper” to avert a life-sized Stephen Harper from “Deepfrying the already battered Earth in oil”

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Victoria, British Columbia

12:00 Gather at Yates and Government St. to hear Dr. Andrew Weaver speak, then begin “Harper’s Backwards March”

12:15 – 1:00 pm Rally at Centennial Square for speeches and fun!

Speeches by:

Dr. Andrew Weaver – UVic Climate Scientist and IPCC Nobel Prize winner

Guy Dauncey – President, BC Sustainable Energy Association

Denise Savoie – NDP Member of Parliament for Victoria

Adriane Carr – Deputy Leader, Green Party of Canada

Caitlyn Vernon – Campaigner, Sierra Club of BC

Judy Fainstein – Regional Coordinator of the Climate Reality Project Canada, Executive Director of Yes BC

Rob Fleming – UN Climate Summit COP 15 delegate in Copenhagen, NDP MLA Victoria-Swan Lake

Ken Wu – Executive Director, Majority for A Sustainable Society (MASS)

Thousands of climate events and actions will occur around the world on the Moving Planet (http://www.moving-planet.org/) international climate action day, coordinated through the organization 350.org

In Victoria, hundreds of participants will join an “all star” cast of climate campaigners for a fun rally and march, organized by the Majority for A Sustainable Society (MASS), a new environmental organization founded by Victoria activist Ken Wu.

The next few months are a particularly crucial time for deciding the planet’s fate. The next UN Climate Summit (COP 17) in Durban, South Africa in December will determine whether there will be deep, binding emissions reduction targets through a successor treaty after the Kyoto Protocol’s first term commitment period expires at the end of 2012. A Kyoto phase 2 starting in 2013 would be vital, lasting 5 years during the crucial “turn around” period to reduce global emissions to avert runaway global warming (through positive feedback loops like increased forest fires, melting sea ice, permafrost methane release, etc).

In contrast, the alternate agreement being pushed by the Harper government, the US, Japan, and Russia would entail weak, voluntary targets that would fall far short of preventing runaway global temperature increases, condemning millions of species to extinction and much of humanity to misery and demise through resource scarcity, famines, wars, and rising sea levels.

A Post-Carbon Future is a necessary and inevitable path as non-renewable fossil fuels are depleted – the issue is one of timing (ie. before or after runaway global warming is set in motion). An ideal Post-Carbon Society would be based on renewable energy, energy conservation, liveable cities, and sustaining native forests and ecosystems. It would create a better world including:

- Supporting businesses and jobs through a new, clean economy rather than a massive economic decline as the world hits Peak Oil, oil reserves are depleted, and prices skyrocket.

- Ensuring a healthier, higher quality of life through more livable cities based on more public transit, walking, cycling, greater community and social interactions, urban gardens, and less pollution.

-Promoting greater stability and world peace through renewable energy independence and reduced climate chaos, instead of oil and water wars, mass migrations, and large-scale conflicts.

- Helping to sustain the diversity of life on Earth instead of driving the largest mass extinction crisis in human history due to the inability of millions of species to shift their distributions fast enough in light of rapid climate change.

Only a strong international agreement for a Kyoto 2 treaty, supported by most developing nations and the European Union, has any chance of averting disaster - any other alternative due to pressure by Harper, the USA, Japan, and Russia will fall far short of the deep cuts and the global technology and conservation shifts that must occur.

“Climate change is the most pressing issue facing the planet, threatening the largest mass extinction crisis in human history and hundreds of millions of people with misery and demise through resource scarcity, mass migrations, and wars,” stated Victoria rally organizer Ken Wu. “The Harper government’s overall approach to international climate negotiations can be characterized as a ‘race to the bottom’ towards the weakest, non-binding targets possible. We can’t let the Conservatives get away with ruining the future for millions of Canadians and countless species. We need a successor treaty to the first Kyoto based on stringent, legally-binding targets, and the rich nations like Canada must lead the way otherwise we’ll have no moral and political leverage to make others follow.”

For more info contact:

Ken Wu, Majority for A Sustainable Society (MASS) 250-514-9910 (cell)