Setting the bar at 350

It seems somewhat fitting to use Earth Day as a moment to plug a new climate movement. My friends over at Step it Up have recently launched a new endeavour: 350.org

So what’s it all about? A couple of weeks ago, the godfather of climate science James Hansen, released a new paper stating that we’ve grossly underestimated the “safe” level for concentrations of Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Previously, we’d been working with levels identified in the IPCC’s fourth assessment report that figure was 450 parts per million (the percentage out of a million). It varies depending on who you speak to, but generally we’re aiming to keep the rate of warming below 2 degrees Celsius. This means limiting the concentration of Carbon between 450ppm and 550ppm. Hansen’s paper blows this out of the water, finding that this figure is actually more like 350ppm. The ramifications of this are clear, given that the current level is about 385ppm and most governments are struggling to meet any targets at all.

While most have spent the last couple of weeks debating over whether this target is possible, the good folks of Step It Up have embraced Hansen’s findings to launch an all new global movement, the aptly named 350.org. You see, while many doubt that the target is an achievable advocacy ask, 350.org are pushing ahead and using this number as a rallying call for people around the world. As Bill McKibben puts it:

"We’re planning an international campaign to unite the world around the number 350, and we need your help. We need to make sure that the solutions the world proposes to climate change are to scale with the level of crisis that this number represents. Everyone on earth, from the smallest village to the cushiest corner office, needs to know what 350 means. The movement to spread that number needs to be beautiful, creative, and unstoppable."

What we need most right now are on-the-ground examples for how to take the number 350 and drive it home: in art, in music, in political demonstrations, in any other way you can imagine. We hope this project will grow tremendously in the months to come, and it helps all the more if people can see the great things others are doing already. We will connect actions all around the world and make them add up to more than the sum of their parts-but we don’t have all the ideas and all the inspiration. We need you to act on yours".

They’ve set themselves a high bar. However, if anyone can do it they can. People were fairly critical of the targets they advocated for Step It Up 2007, and now those targets are firmly in the political mainstream thanks to the fact that Step It Up mobilised thousands of Americans to act at the grassroots level. They may not have the budget of Al Gore -- who has pledged $300 million on a multi media advocacy campaign -- but they have an uncanny knack for motivating large numbers of people in a sustained way that Earth Days and Live Earths cannot. I wish them the best of luck and will be following their progress closely.

UPDATE: Click here to watch 350.org's outstanding video on why the world needs to know about the number 350.