Daryl Hannah: Our Very Future Requires That We Band Together

As I write this, global leaders are at the COP21 in Paris wrestling with elementary concepts like cooperation, responsibility and consequences in an attempt to address the climate crisis and protect all life on Earth—for the 21st time.

It is critical that nations of the world come together and finally limit greenhouse gas emissions to avoid a disastrous rise in global surface temperatures. According to former NASA scientist James Hansen, 1 degree Celsius (34 degrees Fahrenheit) should be the goal. Unfortunately, due to human activity we are careening toward a 5 degrees Celsius (41 degrees Fahrenheit) rise, leaving us to face catastrophes that endanger vulnerable populations, women, children, the poor, future generations—potentially the sixth mass extinction of species.

Climate change is caused by a lethal combination of global overpopulation and rampant industrialization. Our first line of defense should be to protect the natural world by making an unrelenting commitment to preserving and regenerating our forests, oceans, species-diversity, topsoil, fresh water, and all vital intact ecosystems.

It has become strikingly clear that we must rapidly divest financial resources from the dirty fossil fuel economy and invest in efficiently transitioning to 100 percent renewable energy for all.

We can't afford the Faustian bargain of trading greenhouse gas for radioactive plutonium. We've spent trillions of dollars (much of it taxpayer subsidized) and decades on research, and managing radioactive nuclear waste, weapons proliferation and disasters, all of which has proven that splitting atoms is an economically unfeasible, unacceptably dangerously risk.

Another unaddressed key climate solution is to dismantle industrial agriculture, which has been creating dead zones in the ocean, contaminating water supplies, eroding soil, and emitting more greenhouse gases than the transportation sector.

As we shift toward a natural way of farming, we will bring back jobs, rebuild soil health, reduce toxic run off, improve water quality, provide more nutritious food and create resilience. Building soil health is perhaps our most effective tool in sequestering as much carbon as we have emitted since the Industrial Revolution began.

I know we can do this and I have hope.

Although a bold, legally binding treaty among all nations is imperative at COP21, by most accounts, the initial draft proposals tragically fall short. Nonetheless, I have hope world leaders will heed the survival instinct of billions. I have hope they will have the wisdom to make the necessary legal commitments.

I have hope that the process will not disregard the wisdom and rights of our indigenous brothers and sisters, although to date they have been excluded from these climate negotiations. I have hope that the private sector will continue to innovate decentralized energy solutions, and that policymakers will enable rather than hinder their rapid implementation.

I have hope that the people will lead and the so-called leaders will follow, as history has proven is always the case when it comes to great human progress. I have hope that wealthier countries will aid developing nations in leapfrogging directly to clean energy and natural agriculture.

I have hope that President Barack Obama will make substantial commitments on behalf of the U.S., whether or not the 10 other wealthiest industrial nations (who are responsible for 72 percent of the world's global greenhouse gas emissions) do.

Now is the time for the President to prove that we had reason to "hope" his leadership would bring about positive planetary "change."

Clearly, hope without action is nothing but a dream. Our corporate controlled political system is in direct conflict with the meaningful actions needed to realize these solutions. Our very future requires that we band together, vote, share information, demonstrate, leverage social media and, when necessary, engage in civil disobedience. The time has come for citizens to take back control of global leadership if we are to protect the delicate balance of all life on Earth.

Daryl Hannah is an actor and activist.