This flyer explains more about the event.

and background information is here.

Please take part EVERY WEEK in this one-minute silent 'strike': at 11am Thursday just stop wherever you are to imagine a better future.

Post/Tweet "At #11thHourForClimate lets #ImagineFor1Minute"

On the 20th August two years ago, Greta Thunberg took a simple action that led to a global movement. She knew we were at the 11th hour in terms of taking action on climate change.

But governments around the world have still not acted to deal with the run-away climate crisis that faces us.

Democratic governments fear that they will not be re-elected if they take the necessary action. This is not ‘spineless’. It is simply the ‘product of the system’. Just in the same way that carbon emissions and the biodiversity loss are ‘products of the system’.

It is up to us, therefore – the public – to give our various governments courage to act through constant, growing, collective action. And we need to act at speed, because the science tells us we are perilously close to a point of no return.

As Covid-19 has shown, our governments can also get the courage to implement unpopular measures, by following the science. And we will respond when we understand why the measures are needed.

The years of inaction over climate change have allowed doubts about the science to grow out of proportion, and for the arguments to become ideological, ‘right vs left’. But this is beyond politics. It was way back in 1989 that Mrs Thatcher said: “The environmental challenge that confronts the whole world demands an equivalent response from the whole world. Every country will be affected and no one can opt out”.

We need to hold firm to the facts: carbon dioxide warms the atmosphere, and levels have risen sharply since the industrial revolution.

·    Scientists say we must cap the temperature increase to 1.5OC to stand a chance of sustaining civilisation.

·    That means an absolute cap on carbon in the atmosphere.

·    On current trends, the world has less than 10 years before we hit that cap, and even then there is only a 2/3 chance of staying below 1.5OC.  

·    That means the world has to become zero carbon. And quickly.

·    Much more quickly than any action that is currently being taken.

On current trends the earth will heat by at least 3OC by 2100. It will be so hot that vast swathes of the planet will be uninhabitable. Any humans left will be gathering in small tribes, hunkered down and living on whatever patch of land might sustain them.

This is not a strike ‘against’ employers, or only for employees. Instead it is a strike ‘for’ collective action to give us all courage to make the huge changes that are needed.

Join us for the ‘11th Hour Strike for the Climate’ for 1 minute at 11.00am local time every Thursday at the same time.

The logo explained: each line on the clockface is a year, coloured to show the average temperature. 1884 is at the bottom; 2018 is at the top. Data from the UK Met Office.