MEDIA ALERT August 19, 2002

Contacts: Xavier Brault, (French and English), Paris, France (33) 1 43 31 0177
Professor Louis Albou, Secretary General, (French only), Paris, France (33) 1 47 66 7100

The Johannesburg Appeal marks an historical turning point : that of the involvement of the scientific elite worldwide in the battle to save the planet.

Confronted by the unprecedented gravity of the dangers and the suicidal inactivity of our political and economic leaders - in particular their refusal to take the necessary measures to deal with the climate crisis- for scientists to keep silent would be an act of complicity in a major crime against humanity and the living world as a whole.

For this reason, << the scientific community calls those with political or economic power not to simply invoke "economic realism", "inevitability", or the course of history in order to excuse and tolerate the bad consequences of technological developments. Human dignity and the equilibrium of the biosphere are too important to be dismissed this way >>.

This global appeal to the world leadership which is signed by the 100 members of the World Institute of Science, which includes more than 30 Nobel Laureates, is a first step towards the creation of a steering committee composed of the intellectual and moral elite of the scientific community, the economy, and civil society, with the aim of establishing a code of good economic conduct, on the basis of which economic development would be systematically subordinated to the overiding goal of assuring the stability of the living world and hence the welfare and indeed the survival of our own species.