350.org: Because the World Needs to Know
The most recent scientific research suggests that unless we can reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million, we will cause huge and irreversible damage to the earth. Realizing the urgency to spread this message and to take the word across to each continent and to each country, 350.org took shape as a movement that is now working to spread this most important number on the planet by building a global grassroots climate movement united by a common call to action.
350 is the most important number on the Planet. This number is a safe line for our global climate and a start line for a global movement is how 350.org begins to explain the importance of 350.
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Based in the USofA, 350.org was launched in March 2008 by Bill McKibben and a team of young organizers who had previously carried out the successful Step It Up 2007 campaign. Through the large number of International friends and friendly organisations 350.org has been reaching out to spread the 350 message in ways more than one. The most unique among them is the human art formation in the shape of 350, in order to spread the message in the most creative way possible.
350 creativity images and stories from across the globe are shared on the 350.org website which is dedicated to make 350 ppm the benchmark for success for national and international climate agreements.
The movement has been careful in selecting a number rather than an English phrase, for a number can more easily cut across the language barrier and reach to an even larger audience. Numerals are among the few things that most people around the world recognize. The movement has already been successful in reaching out to a lot of countries across the globe.
Click here to Take 350 Action | Click here to spread the word…err..number!
Photo: 350.org screen view
With all due respect to the intentions of the author and site founders, what a load of codswallop.
Isn’t this more like the 450 ppm target, that translated into the two degrees. Don’t we already have a target set with that.
Dear Techno,
The two degrees target gets across the message that though we need to cut emissions, we are still okay right now, until we reach 450 ppm (of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere). And 450 ppm is what we need to stabilize at, in order to maintain life on this planet, as we know it.
However, I am sure I don’t need to illustrate to prove the fact that the impact of climate change is already being felt today. The heat wave in Europe is just one of those.
Given the above, and after the publication of the paper Target atmospheric CO2: Where should humanity aim? by Dr. James Hansen of NASA, which declares 350 ppm to be the upper limit and that we should work to bring down the atmospheric CO2 to this level, 350.org took shape to get this message across to the people at large.
The fact that we are already nearing 400 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere (and bearing the consequences), a target of 450 ppm (two degrees) only help delay action that is required to be taken in the present day. 350 ppm is thus more scientifically accepted and also a common sense number to get back to.