Earth Equity News

Campaign Against Emissions Picks Number: 350. By Andrew C. Revkin, NYTimes, October 25, 2009. "[On Saturday www.350.org facilitated] a synchronized burst of more than 4,300 demonstrations, from the Himalayas to the Great Barrier Reef, all centered on the number 350. For some prominent climate scientists, that is the upper limit for heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, measured in parts per million. If the gas concentration exceeds that for long, they warn, the world can expect decades of disrupted climate patterns, rising sea levels, drought and famine. The current concentration is 387 parts per million. Organizers said their goal, in the prelude to global climate talks in Copenhagen in December, was to illustrate the urgent need to cut emissions by pointing out that the world passed the 350 mark two decades ago... In a prominent recent study, scientists concluded that carbon dioxide levels were almost certainly headed beyond any levels experienced on the planet in the last 15 million years. Michael Oppenheimer, a scientist previously at the Environmental Defense Fund who is now at Princeton, said it would be a herculean accomplishment to hold concentrations below 450 parts per million in decades. But Bill McKibben, the author and activist who founded 350.org, the group coordinating the protests, defended its approach, saying that settling on a concrete goal articulated as a number was the only way to build a 'global community' for climate action."