This is a guest post from our friends at the National Climate Ethics Campaign:

Climate change-enhanced extreme weather events are causing tremendous human suffering and death in the U.S.—and across the globe. But, big coal, oil and gas, along with other special interests have blocked efforts to deal with climate change. A social movement—the 350.org movement–is urgently needed to overcome this opposition and force government and corporate interests to address climate change.

Mobilization to stop the Keystone pipeline and shut down coal plants are essential focuses of a climate movement. In addition, from the abolitionist movement, to civil rights, and women’s suffrage, history shows that to overcome entrenched economic interests an activity must be declared to be morally wrong and people must be motivated to correct that wrong by working toward a higher moral purpose. Recognizing this need, a group of 20-plus organizations have joined together to launch the National Climate Ethics Campaign.

The campaign is organized around one of humanity's most deeply held universal moral precepts which is to 'do no harm.'  This axiom says that any activity that unjustifiably causes human suffering and death is morally wrong. Our legal system is based on this moral precept. The injuries and deaths caused by the flooding, droughts and other extreme weather events, along with the degradation of ecosystems and extinction of biodiversity that are essential to all life, including we humans, make clear that climate change is a deeply moral issue. 

The U.S. has contributed the most carbon emissions to the atmosphere over the past century, remains the world's largest per capita emitter today, and continues to refuse to meaningfully cut emissions. It is thus contributing to widespread human suffering and death and violating one of humanity's most important moral precepts. It is morally and ethically wrong for corporate and government officials to claim that it costs too much to reduce emissions–meaning it is too expensive for the U.S. to stop injuring and killing people. It is also morally and ethically wrong to use scientific uncertainty as an excuse to delay emissions reductions.  We must stand up to this moral outrage.

350.org members can tell elected officials and corporate interests across America that efforts to block action on climate change are morally wrong by endorsing the "Statement of Our Nation's Moral Obligation to Address Climate Change" that can be found at this link: http://climateethicscampaign.org/statement/

Please join the 370 organizations and people that have already signed the statement. It will be released to Congress and the President this November at an event in Washington D.C.