Earth Equity News

An Open Letter to James Hansen on the Real Truth about Stabilizing at 350 PPM. By Joseph Romm, ClimateProgress, November 23 2008. "James Hansen (and his fellow 350 ppm-ers): You make a compelling case we must ultimately return atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide to 350 parts per million to avoid catastrophic climate impacts [Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?, PDF, 35]. But you have made an uncompelling case about how President-elect Obama should go about achieving 350 ppm in your new draft essay Tell Barack Obama the Truth -- The Whole Truth and in previous essays (see here). You are, for instance, overly dismissive of cap-and-trade and overly enamored of a carbon tax, when, in fact, neither holds any prospect whatsoever of achieving your goal... If the truth is that we must have a target of 350 ppm, then you must be equally truthful in insisting on national and international policies that could achieve that goal. So far, you haven't. Nobody has... I am not entirely convinced that 350 ppm is needed this century from a purely scientific perspective. But I am utterly unconvinced that you have a technology and policy strategy needed to achieve 350 ppm or come anywhere close. For now, I'll stick with 450 ppm." [Editor's Note: Dr. Hansen will be the leader speaker at a Washington congressional briefing on carbon taxes, which CCC is cosponsoring with the Carbon Tax Center. We are also very supportive of 350.org, which is doing it's best to get the world to embrace Hansen's challenge. While we, of course, disagree with Romm's rejection of this goal as well as his dismissive commentary on carbon taxes, he, as always, has important things to say. We recommend reading this piece in full.]