350 DAY: October 24 has been dubbed a day of action worldwide to push for returning greenhouse gas levels to 350 parts per million in the atmosphere.
Image: Courtesy of 350.org
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Author Bill McKibben never saw this coming. Founder of 350.org, an environmental campaign aimed at holding atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations below 350 parts per million, McKibben sent word that this Saturday would be the day to take to the streets.
The call went viral in ways far beyond anything McKibben and fellow organizers imagined: As of Thursday morning some 4,317 actions and rallies are planned in 171 countries, with 300 events in China, 1500 across the United States, 500-plus in Central and South America.
Organizers credit the increasing inter-connectedness of Web, cellular and social networks for the spread, saying such random and organic growth would have been impossible even two years ago.
The climate crisis is also starting to resonate in a significant way, McKibben added. This is arguably the largest political event ever to take a data point as a rallying cry, he said, and people—particularly the youth behind many of the actions planned for Saturday—get it.
"This is the one most important number in the world right now," McKibben said in an interview. "It's the one number that applies as absolutely in the Maldives as in Manhattan. It somehow has worked its magic."
* On the shores of the dwindling Dead Sea, Israeli activists will make a giant human "3" on their beach, Palestinians a huge "5" on their shore and Jordanians a "0" on theirs.
* In the coup-ridden capital of Honduras, parishioners of the Amor, Fe, y Vida church will host a neighborhood tree-planting while across town activists plan a 5-kilometer march.
* Up in Canada's Yukon Territory, a Whitehorse youth group is planning a group hug—350 people strong—of the territorial legislature.
* With a nod to folk singer Pete Seeger, Greenfield, Mass.' Amandla Chorus has reworked the lyrics to Beethoven's classic Ode to Joy and will perform their version at the town 350 Day festival.
* An energy group is throwing a black-tie gala in Shanghai; in Beijing a few hundred students intend to cycle through downtown; way out in Western China a handful of students plans to hike to a melting glacier.
"We were prepared for a great day in the United States," said Jamie Henn, 350.org's coordinator, who organized China with a visit, some emails, a few calls and a bunch of instant message "chats." "We had no idea it would take off the way it has internationally."
"The great thing about these digits (3-5-0) is that you can recognize them no matter what script you're using," he added. "It goes to show how wired the world is in many ways, and how you can take a real simple and focused bit of information and broadcast it around the world."
The number stems from the amount of planet-warming carbon dioxide scientists believe the atmosphere can safely hold before climate systems start to go haywire.
For the millennia before the industrial revolution, when humans started pumping industrial emissions into the atmosphere, carbon dioxide levels had held fairly steady at about 280 ppm. Carbon dioxide concentrations rose gradually but steadily to the mid-20th century, when they started to skyrocket. Today the level is 387 ppm, with many analysts expecting the globe to hit 450 ppm or even 550 ppm before world economies "decarbonize" sufficiently to radically reduce emissions.
The problem is that data from the past 100 million years suggests the planet was largely ice-free until carbon dioxide levels fell below 450 ppm, plus or minus 100 ppm. Somewhere between 350 ppm and 550 ppm, climatologists suspect, is a critical threshold that triggers irreversible climate change, loss of major ice sheets, abrupt sea-level rise and massive shifts in forests and agriculture.
Until recently the notion of bringing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels back to 350 ppm—voiced most vocally by McKibben and NASA's Jim Hansen—was dismissed as wild-eyed optimism. The Earth last saw 350 ppm in 1987, when President Reagan was in office; the molecule hangs in the atmosphere for centuries; and the world's major industrialized economies so far have shown little ability—to say nothing of inclination—to turn off the tap.
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12 Comments
Add CommentThe relationship of atmospheric carbon and global warming is unproven. Iceland and Greenland supported much more agriculture one thousand years ago than it does now. They were much warmer than they are now. Yet there was no industry to speak of. England was famous for better wines than France now grows at around the same time. Going back even further the Florida keys were underwater reefs until the ocean levels fell. These climate changes are the natural outgrowth of the variable heat engine in our sky. The sun. The CO2 levels have been rising every year since 2000 yet we can observe the planet's temperature is cooling every year. Our planet naturally goes through cycles of warming and cooling. The people that want you to adopt a more primitive lifestyle to "save" the planet are nothing more than tyrants. Their leaders (Gore, Kennedy, Hansen) are in it for 2 things. Money and power. Do you see them leading the lifestyle they want you to live? Since the renaissance we have been fighting a war against intellectual and physical tyranny. Are you willing to let these frauds reduce you to serfdom and slavery?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHeres how to do it. Quickly and cost effectively end fossil fuel use using nuclear power.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHydro, Wind, solar, geothermal, carbon capture and most of all cap n'trade are simply fiddling while Rome burns. These are too little too late technologies.
Germany has already wasted 10 years and $100 billion dollars in treasure on the above technologies and has not reduced its greenhouse emissions one iota. In fact it is planning a massive build of dirty coal plants to meet its baseload power requirements.
Fossil fuels cost the United States $800 billion directly an estimated $120 billion or so in environmental damage (dirt,soot,engine damage,paint, health care). Even global warming deniers could see the benefit of eliminating their use.
A world war scale effort converting from fossil fuels to mass produced nuclear power would be paid for by very quickly ending domestic use of fossil fuels. Depending on the amount of nuclear steam heating (small towns, tar sands, cogen), we would need to build as many as 2500 gigawatts of mass produced nuclear power at $1000 a gigawatt with payback periods as little as three years for the average plant converted. All that is required is the political will.
As electric car usage slowly builds, vehicles could be fueled by abundant supplies of cheap natural gas. Using Utah's example, natural gas as a vehicle fuel could be made available as of yesterday at less than $1 a gallon equivalent. As fossil fuel conversion advances more and more natural gas for use vehicle fuel would become available.
With mass production of reactors an enormous job boosting domestic and export market would be created.
New Gen IV Integrated Fast Reactors like the Russian, Indian, Westinghouse and Chinese are operating and being built for service within the next three to four years. New designs like Sandias Right Reactor, Bill Gates Terrapower and the ultimate LFTR will be ready within the five to ten year framework. These reactors run for 30 years at a very low cost using current nuclear waste as fuel reducing it to a tiny amount of low level waste.
Ten years from now extremely low cost fusion technologies like the Polywell, Focus and TriAlpha designs and well as the large scale ITR will be coming into service at a tiny fraction of todays electricity costs.
India has already committed to 450 gigawatts and China to 120 of nukes. Some senators are proposing a miniscule 100 gigawatts in the climate bill.
America needs to stop being a millstone dragging down China and India's global warming efforts and get on track.
350? three shmifty. Political grandstanding and moronic propaganda without a shred of science in sight.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow the modern Church of the Immaculate AGW has a target, and it is 350.
First it was the separation of church and state. Now if only we could mature enough as a species to separate church and science.
greatmag, even if you are dead set in denying that global warming is caused by man, so what? Cold weather isn't caused by Man each winter, but we still got off our asses and developed coats, and furnaces, and insulation, and all sorts of things to fix what for us was a problem. Sunburn isn't caused by man but we developed hats and sunscreen.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEven if the most scientists are crazy and mankind has not caused this problem, why would you think trying to stave off massive destruction from what you call "natural" climate change is a bad idea? If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.
and Shoshin, while you might not find the science behind the number 350 rigorous enough for you, there is plenty of good science pointing towards the seriousness of this issue overall. But since our population is generally not a scientific one, but a policial/economic/religous one, you can't move public policy with just science, you need some concept that appeals to the masses...
I say don't disdain any tool that helps the general public get aligned with the overall goals that science is clearly pointing out are more and more necessary
Sent: Friday, August 28, 2009 4:38 PM
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSubject: In case you missed it the first time around
Postlude:
Andy Maser: Kayaking For Climate Change | The Outside Blog
By Guest Blogger
On August 5th, Trip Jennings, Sam Drevo and I spent the evening herding 20 sea kayakers, whitewater kayakers and one standup paddle-boarder into the shape of a giant floating 350 [1] on Portland, Oregon's Willamette River.
<http://outside-blog.away.com/blog/2009/08/andy-maser-kayaking-for-climate-change.html>
And with no intent to be rude:
To civilians who to "350" allude
As the level, certain,
That wont ring down the (world) curtain:
It's likely only an estimate, crude.
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[1] On October 24, thousands of student groups, faith groups, community organizations and outdoor enthusiasts around the world will participate in 350.org's International Day of Climate Action , and were rallying the paddling community to be a part of it all.
Why 350? In 2007, NASAs chief climatologist, Jim Hansen, released a study marking 350 parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere as the safe level for humanity. Anything higher than that and we risk reaching environmental tipping points that could make our planet much less hospitable--THE LEVEL IS CURRENTLY 390 PPM.
(emphasis added).
[What will happen between 390 and 350
350.org hasn't yet said
But theoretically, as between life and death (planetarily speaking),
The latter will by then be ahead].
Sent: Friday, August 28, 2009 4:38 PM
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSubject: In case you missed it the first time around
Postlude:
Andy Maser: Kayaking For Climate Change | The Outside Blog
By Guest Blogger
On August 5th, Trip Jennings, Sam Drevo and I spent the evening herding 20 sea kayakers, whitewater kayakers and one standup paddle-boarder into the shape of a giant floating “350”[1] on Portland, Oregon's Willamette River.
<http://outside-blog.away.com/blog/2009/08/andy-maser-kayaking-for-climate-change.html>
And with no intent to be rude:
To civilians who to "350" allude
As the level, certain,
That won’t ring down the (world) curtain:
It's likely only an estimate, crude.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] On October 24, thousands of student groups, faith groups, community organizations and outdoor enthusiasts around the world will participate in 350.org's International Day of Climate Action , and we’re rallying the paddling community to be a part of it all.
Why 350? In 2007, NASA’s chief climatologist, Jim Hansen, released a study marking 350 parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere as the safe level for humanity. Anything higher than that and we risk reaching environmental tipping points that could make our planet much less hospitable--THE LEVEL IS CURRENTLY 390ppm. (emphasis added).
[What will happen between 390 and 350
350.org hasn't yet said
But theoretically, as between life and death ("planetarily speaking"),
The latter will by then be ahead].
It is nice to read how the world reacts to call for action against global warming and climate change. The nature we live in is living and is reality that exist next our skin. Even a common man can experience the rise in heat and changing scenario of the environment in which he lives. The only people who fail to recognize this is the intellectuals who cling on to science without reviewing the limits and loopholes of science and the leader of the world who is after money and material power to rule the world.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne look at earth shows that everything in it is upsetting. There is tremendous increase in natural catastrophes both in number and magnitude. The earth is unstable, sun is violent, human health of humanity is decreasing; the mind individuals community and nations are restless and is tending to war and destruction. There is no doubt that world has to awaken to global warming and climate change and disastrous end to which humanity is moving because of his blind material pursuit. But I feel this awakening cannot come unless the foundation of human thinking about nature changes. We need to rewrite the foundation of modern science and the material knowledge on which the world and its government is functioning. Here I call your attention to some vital research about the Truth of Nature, which even a common man can understand. This when discussed in the media, will lead the leaders of big nations to bow and sign the treaty at Copenhagen
Everything in nature is made up of energy and energy can be deduced to heat. If you care to stop and observe nature we note Earth is designed to sustain herself with two phases. When west awakes to sunlight and goes into disorder, the east simultaneously goes into sleep and order. An ordering and disordering phase working simultaneously sustains earth from collapsing. When the energy of sunlight causes shredding, the cycle on the opposite converts this energy into matter and thus maintains the balance of energy and matter on earth. In the process it maintains the temperature. This fundamental design of earth helps the system maintain its balance and create environment for life to survive.
All life obeys the law of the energy cycle except humans. The functioning of earth is stressed when humans interfere into the ordering phase of earth. Human mind is thus the cause of time direction and death to the world. The Global warming and Climatic Changes we witness can be directly related to upsetting the energy cycle and interfering into her functioning to sustain her self. We the human species if we have to survive need to make some fundamental change in our thinking.
Explore http://sites.google.com/site/awakeningtotruth
The real catastrophe are governments such as the USA that pretend being in posession of absolute truth and feel obliged to impose it to the rest of the world. OK, there is a "democracy", but: who shot the Kennedys?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisjgrosay:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWho shot the Kennedy's? Didn't Mick Jagger say it was you and me...
This activity is badly misguided. Carbon dioxide is a minor player in atmospheric heat transport. There are far more pressing problems on the planet, particularly water-related, that deserve this sort of attention.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe physical characteristics of CO2 in the atmosphere are easy to understand. People only add 2% of the total every year as it is; the ocean is the main controller of variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration. There just isn't enough of it in the air to matter.
Many scientists like myself encourage everyone to put CO2 in its proper perspective (see www.getthescienceright.com). It just doesn't rate this kind of attention when compared to valid concerns.
To: GreatMag &rfy
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think you are both right and we are bring played for suckers by Al Gore and his ilk.
S.
The problem, thariss, is that man's effects are trivial in either direction. These reports and alarms are artifacts of selective data mining. For 100s of millions of years the carbon # was 2-4,000, and temps were below today's.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCO2's ability to affect climate maxes out at around 200. Anything thereafter is fiddling with the last 1 or 2% of its influence. Ideally, the atmosphere would be like a true greenhouse's at 2,000 ppm+ to maximize plant growth. (It's the glass roof that makes a greenhouse warm, by the way, not the CO2).
All of this frenetic activity is chasing dollars from public purses to solve a problem that doesn't exist.
In any case, in about 5 years small pulsed dense plasma focus generators will begin providing nearly unlimited electric power at around 1/20 of today's costs, and all the climate alarmists and renewable power pushers will be out of business.