Humanity is facing the triple challenge of climate change, biodiversity and wildlife loss, and pollution. At the same time, our civilization is on an unsustainable trajectory pointing to a collapse if fundamental transformations cannot change this trajectory very soon. The community in the VCC has prepared a Declaration of Human and Planetary Existential Emergency that summarizes the challenges and indicates an action plan to face the challenges. We have two main foci:
The moment has come where we all need to act. What do we have to lose by acting? We only are losing by not acting on the emergency!
Hope is like a muscle and action is training this muscle. Jane Fonda.
[Mar. 03, 2025] Seeing Earth Through the Eyes of an Alien Planetary Ecologist: In the Call 9-1-1” episode of “With Good Reason”, Hans-Peter Plag takes on the perspective of an alien planetary ecologist coming to Earth. And when he looks at Earth, he sees a crisis of overgrowth. Humans, he says, have become a virus in the Earth’s life-support system. If we don’t learn to do more with less, he fears that we will irreparably disrupt the planetary system that keeps us alive.
[Jun. 09, 2024] A Core Statement: George Tsakraklides states: “The reason why capitalism is a death sentence for humanity is that it is a system which only understands doing, building and achieving. It is incapable of stopping, retreating and reducing, which are the very things we must do if we want to have any chance of continuing to exist.”
[Jun. 08, 2023] Translation of the Declaration: The translation of the Declaration of Planetary Emergency is under way. To help, go to the Declaration.
COPE VCC News
[Jan. 09, 2026] This Does Not Work: The President of the USA has withdrawn the USA from many international organizations working for a better future for humanity, see Withdrawing the United States from International Organizations, Conventions, and Treaties that Are Contrary to the Interests of the United States. This is a culmination of the efforts of those whose only goal is to increase their own wealth, no matter what! The Planetary and Human emergency just became far more severe.
[Nov. 29, 2025] Justice and Wellbeing within Planetary Boundaries: At COP30 in Belém, Brazil, Earth system experts from around the world convened on November 15 for the Official Side Event: ‘Justice and Wellbeing within Planetary Boundaries: Pathways for COP30’, hosted by Earth4All, Earth Commission and Global Commons Alliance. Read the Summary provided by the Global Commons Alliance.
Platform News
[Jan. 09, 2026] Ocean Heat Content Sets Another Record in 2025: The analysis published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences reveals that global ocean warming continued unabated in 2025 in response to increased greenhouse gas concentrations and recent reductions in sulfate aerosols. In the article by Damian Carrington published in The Guardian, John Abraham, a member of the analysis team, is quoted: “Global warming is ocean warming. If you want to know how much the Earth has warmed or how fast we will warm into the future, the answer is in the oceans.”
[Dec. 21, 2025] How to tackle the Human Emergency: In his blog How to become Earth Citizens, Julian Cribb states that “we are now living amid the greatest emergency in humanity’s million-year tenure of the Earth.” He underlines that this emergency comprises ten existential threats that can not be addresses separately: Extinction, Resource Scarcity, Global Poisoning, WMD, Hothouse Earth, Food Scarcity, Uncontrolled Technologies, Pandemics, Overpopulation, Misinformation. “The Council for the Human Future describes this constellation of threats as ‘ the human emergency’.” Cribb emphasizes that “if we want to survive, humans must first agree to survive.” The Council for the Human Future “considers that now is the time for a new kind of human to emerge – the Earth Citizen.” This is what we also aim for here at Place4Us.
