"Today, we are faced globally with a new crisis: the changing environment and the changing climate. It's a frightening situation that will affect everyone but will hurt the poor and the weak far more than the wealthy and the strong. ...we cannot pretend that it will not affect us. It already has."
Wilfred J. Wilkinson, President, Rotary International
Rotarian Magazine, April 2008

Climate stewardship is a natural responsibility for Rotarians. It meets our Four-Way Testfor responsible service, and has direct implications for our ongoing humanitarian commitments to disaster relief, peace and security and, especially, clean water for poor communities worldwide.

Our leadership in business and community, our connections with Rotarians worldwide, and our tradition of service above self give Rotarians a unique power to help our society minimize and adapt to climate change. See below for ideas and resources to help you and your Rotary club do more.

Climate Change and the Four-Way Test

Rotarians have learned to apply the tests of Truth, Fairness, Goodwill and Benefit for All to any project we undertake. Climate action meets each of these four tests:

• Is it the truth?

The world's leading scientists, including the national science academies of the United States and 18 other countries, have testified to the reality and urgency of human-caused climate change. The scientific consensus is nearly unanimous and supported by many independent lines of evidence.

• Is it fair?

Climate change is profoundly an issue of fairness. It is caused mainly by the burning of fossil fuels in the wealthiest countries, especially the United States, and in the rapidly growing economies of China and other middle-income countries. Yet, it will hurt most the poorest of the poor [1], who lack the resources to adjust and who live in the areas most affected by the increased drought, flooding, and water-borne disease that come with a warmer climate [2]. Even in America, Hurricane Katrina showed us how natural disasters can fall most heavily on the poor. We cannot attribute any one storm to climate change, any more than we can attribute any one person's heart attack to our national epidemic of obesity. Nevertheless, warmer oceans are expected to increase the intensity of tropical storms [3]. Katrina is, therefore, an example of the kind of disaster that is likely to become more common with global warming. It is an image of how the world's poor will pay for the lifestyles of the wealthy.

• Does it promote goodwill?

Fair solutions to climate change are essential to international goodwill. Climate change, and how to share the responsibility for minimizing it, are already the subjects of rancorous disputes among Europe, the United States, China and developing nations.

Climate change may already have exacerbated the drought and famine that fuel the violence in Darfur [4]. Two other climate-change effects, sea level rise and increased seasonal flooding, have driven refugees from Bangladesh into Northeast India, sparking an often-violent conflict with the Assamese already living there [5].

Further warming is likely to bring wars over water, instability due to hunger and disease, and social conflict due to the movement of millions of climate refugees [6-8]. Such problems are likely in many regions that already have ongoing conflicts, including North Africa, the Sahel, Southern Africa, South Asia, Central Asia, the Caribbean and the Amazon. Climate change is a threat to our own national security, according to a recent report by eleven retired admirals and generals including former U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gordon Sullivan and former Commander of the U.S. Central Command Anthony Zinni [6]. As the United Nations Environment Program puts it, "Combating climate change will be a central peace policy of the 21st century." [7]