Confronting the Human and Planetary Existential Emergency

A Sustainable and Desirable Future for All of Us
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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:

  1. Ensure that all people on Earth have the opportunity to read or listen to the Declaration in their own language;
  2. Provide a place where those who want can join in our effort of coping with the challenges and finding ways to bring us and Earth out of this existential emergency.

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.

COPE VCC Billboard

[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.

News

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[Jan. 09, 2026] This Does Not Work: The President of the USA has withdrawn the USA from many international organizations working for a better future for humanity, see Withdrawing the United States from International Organizations,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

[Feb. 02, 2026] A World of Inequality: "The data presented here are striking. The richest 10% of the global population own close to three-quarters of all wealth, while the poorest half hold barely 2%. Fewer than 60,000 multi-millionaires now control three times more wealth than half of humanity combined." From the World Inequality Report 2026. In this world of growing inequality, the global population appears to be dominate and exploited by the few super wealthy.

[Jan. 28, 2026] ThirdActTWVCC VCC opened: The "Third Act Tidewater VCC" has been initialized and is open now.

[Jan. 28, 2026] It may not be too late to fix the Web: The article titled “ ‘It’s not too late to fix it’: internet inventor Tim Berners-Lee says he is in a ‘battle for the soul of the web’” by Daisy Dumas published in The Guardian states that the founder of the world wide web says the commercialisation of the Web has been ‘optimised for nastiness’. But Breners-Lee believes that collaboration and compassion can prevail. This is what Place4Us is all about.

[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.”