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International Day of Demonstrations on Climate Change
The events were being coordinated by a group called 350.org, whose name refers to the parts per million of carbon dioxide it considers the safe upper limit for our atmosphere.
The group said it wants to "inspire the world to rise to the challenge of the climate crisis" ahead of the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December.
Divers at the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and in the ocean off the Maldives held banners with the 350 logo. Skiers and snowboarders formed the number 350 on a snow-covered slope in Wanaka, New Zealand, and hikers unfurled a 350 banner atop Vinson Massif, the tallest mountain in Antarctica.
Other events around the world were planned for Saturday, from Britain and Zimbabwe to Bermuda and Guatemala, according to 350.org.
In all, more than 5,400 rallies and demonstrations were scheduled to take place around the world, all of them centered on the number 350, the group said.
"We had no idea we would get the overwhelming support, enthusiasm and engagement from all over the world that we're seeing," said Bill McKibben, a writer and environmentalist who founded 350.org. "It shows just how scared of global warming much of the planet really is, and how fed up at the inaction of our leaders."
The number of 350 ppm originally came from a NASA research team headed by American climate scientist James Hansen, which surveyed both real-time climate observations and emerging paleo-climatic data in January 2008, according to 350.org.
It concluded that atmosphere containing carbon dioxide above 350 ppm couldn't support life on earth as we know it, the group said.
"It's a very tough number," McKibben said. "We're already well past it -- the atmosphere holds 390 ppm today, which is why the Arctic is melting and the ocean steadily acidifying. To get back to the safe level we need a very rapid halt to the use of coal, gas and oil so that forests and oceans can absorb some of that carbon."
McKibben and Hansen are "messengers" for 350.org, along with prominent leaders and climate change campaigners including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Bianca Jagger and David Suzuki.
"I believe climate change is the 21st century's greatest human rights and security challenge," said Maldives President Mohammed Nasheed, who is one of the messengers. His country, an archipelago of 1,200 islands, is threatened with disappearing under water if sea levels continue to rise.
"If we cannot save 350,000 Maldivians from rising seas today, we cannot save the millions in New York, London, or Mumbai tomorrow," he said in a recorded statement released by 350.org. "Climate change is happening, and it is happening faster and with greater severity than previously thought."
17 Comments so far
Show AllAnd this article was first published where? Or by whom? Attribution, please.
Meanwhile, look around you. If atmospheric CO2 is already at 390 ppm and 350 ppm is considered "the safe upper limit" then how the hell do we get back there without really drastic actions. And I mean drastic!!! CO2 is only one of several greenhouse gases. Methane is reportedly some 25 times more potent as a greenhouse gas, with much of it locked up in permafrost northern tundra that is now melting, with the threat of an irreversible blowout. Next, the Greenland icecap bubbles into the sea and there go the Maldeves, Bangladesh, half of Florida, etc. Meanwhile, half of America's macho men will still demand their goddam Hummers and their goddam Viagra (even if their sperm count is way down and their tails can't wiggle anymore).
Let's all hold hands and celebrate the really drastic actions we are about to undertake. And you thought it was bad in Rwanda...
Ignorance is bliss.
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I just read somewhere else that if I continue doing my hippy thing, I will be sequestering a couple thousand tons of carbon per acre on my organic farm, annually. If you want to help do this and have some fun too, enlist with the Woofers. They have a website http://www.wwoof.org/
Sophie Scholl-The Final Days
Five years ago, if you'd said the Arctic was going to be ice-free in 10 years, you would have been laughed out of town. Today its accepted science.
Regarding studies on Polar Warming in the last 10 years, the phrase used by scientists that you'll hear used again and again is 'its worse than we thought'.
Two years ago, the IPCC estimated sea levels would rise 1.5 ft by end of century. A year later, they doubled that estimate. Now, the most credible estimate is 3 to 6 ft.
Three years ago, scientists published data from gravimetric data on satellites orbiting the Poles. The general conclusion on the amount of measured ice mass loss in the previous 5 years was 'oh sh*t'.
So, here's my prediction: 8 ft of sea level rise by end of century, and 3 ft just in the next 20 years. This means that half of Florida is going underwater, all of Waikiki, and significant fractions of the eastern seaboard, just in the next 20 years. The demonstrations today will do nothing to prevent this. Due to the multi-decadal lag between action and reaction in polar ice-shelves perched over oceans, this amount of rise will merely reflect LAST centuries warming.
A CD article yesterday mentioned that Allstate Insurance won't insure low-lying properties on the Eastern Seaboard. Their excuse is because of the Hurricane risk. But since the primary risk to property of a hurricane is the storm surge, its obvious that they understand the existing threat to low lying properties due to sea level rise. If you own such properties, within 3 ft of mean sea level, you should probably try to sell your property before this concern becomes common knowledge, possibly in an little as 5 years, and your ability to find buyers shrinks to the hard-core denialist community.
The irony of todays demonstrations is that they are actually seeking to prevent 3 ft of sea level rise from becoming 6 ft. A bunch of neo-hippies trying to pull a bunch of capitalist property owners as*es out of a sling. LOL.
I don't have much hope that they will succeed. I may be pessimistic (but I think realist), but even I haven't incorporated permafrost methane releases into my thinking. The number of 'oh sh*t' moments among THOSE researchers is increasing also. This is all going to get VERY REAL, VERY SHORTLY. Like in 5 years I think what I'm saying now will be the common opinion.
Actually, as someone with some geology training, I think the consequences you mention - sea level rise are very minor compared to the other consequences of high atmospheric CO2 and runaway release of greenhouse gases.
In fact talking shrilly about a 6 feet sea level rise runs the risk of just a big "so what? from our adversaries.
Instead we need to point out something McKibben said: "The results of Copenhagen will extend to distant geologic time", then direct them to some articles on the Great Permian-Triassic Extinction event - which I think is what we really are headed for.
The researchers are approaching this thing all wrong. The scientist should not be advising the policymakers regarding the scenarios they are sure of, they should be advising the policymakers of the very worst credible scenarios - most of which involve the wiping out of most life on earth - including ourselves.
I am a civil engineer, and if we designed dams the way the climate scientists are advising policymakers, 50% of them would fail! You design something for the improbable worst forces it must withstand - not the ones you are sure of.
Well said and thanks for sharing your experience about dam design.
I was comparing different places on earth the other day. One thing that caught my eye was how high the average elevation of terrain is. There may be lots of coastal cities with large populations but cities don't grow food. The population could move to higher ground. The main problem is atmospheric. No one mentions oxygen depletion.
Hydrocarbon burning is using oxygen far faster than photosynthesis is replacing it. Also, water vapor is itself a potent (more than CO2) greenhouse gas. And for those who say we'll evolve to use less oxygen I say there isn't enough time and the biosphere is a lot more complicated than anything man can design, produce or control. Scientists hate to talk about how little we know about nature. Rampant fungal growth in humid conditions isn't talked about. Just because fungi are not normally lethal doesn't mean they won't become so in a tropical world. This hubris may end up killing us all.
The other day I read an article on how the Harvard Business School contributed to the greedy mindset of CEOs and destroying our economy (from a Harvard Business School graduate) by eliminating the busines-custumer relationship model and pushing the "maximum productivity (profit now)" model. He claims this led to outsourcing, etc.
I think it is all of a piece with the extreme compartmentaliztion of thinking which calls on everybody to be as selfish as possible because we are NOT "all in this together". Well, it turns out we ARE all in this together but many of our leaders and scientists are still thinking like the CEOs, i.e. we'll fix it for the elite and most of humanity (if possible) and the hell with the coral reefs and algae along with millions of living creatures; every creature for himself.
We know how that worked out with our economy.....
Altruism is not optional if we wish to survive. Too bad the elite won't listen.
To paraphrase Patrick Henry:
GIVE US A HUMAN RACE IN HARMONY WITH THE PLANETARY BIOSPHERE OR GIVE US DEATH.
To AGG---
I am one who has read your often prescient comments at other CD threads. This time, though, you really caught me on the idea of oxygen DEPLETION.
You are correct in observing that we lack evolutionary time to adapt to that. The issue had simply ducked under my radar.
Meanwhile, I had read elsewhere that the great methane burps upcoming have the potential to asphyxiate most mammals. The solution? Great white plastic reflective sheets over the northern tundra and most of the Arctic. The tundra sheets could trap the methane and we could use it to produce more plastic. (Wonderful! More BPA...)
As the white stuff called ice, that supposedly reflects the sun back into space disappears, we need more white stuff. Of course it cannot be glaciated to provide water to the quarter or so of the world's population now dependent on glaciers for agriculture, but it could delay the day of reckoning---another tech solution to a tech-created problem. It just gets worse. Next thing you know those drones in AfPak will get it into their own minds who to attack and --- remember that old lat 60s film, "The President's Analyst," (Coburn) where it turned out that it wasn't the CIA that was the problem, it was TPC---The Phone Company? Today your cell phone is the TPC, but soon human intervention will be irrelevant. TPC will decide who and when to kill.
Who was that artist who enveloped that German building, The Reichstag? and did that thing in Central Park? He may have had it right! We may be heading for "planetary interventions" on a scale far larger than rainmaking by seeding clouds with silver...
Just some thoughts on expanding the so-called debate... I remain a grass-roots troglodyte while seeking more advanced solutions.
Meanwhile, it is evident to me that the so-called "supply chain" is already collapsing and has been for some time. When a retail system of distributed networks ends up concentrated entirely on the likes of Wal*Mart, that is a civilizational breakdown.
Where I live, in the midwest, if I want to buy a pair of thermal underwear that is real and not made in China I have to travel at least 40 miles by car because there is no public transit. I find this alarming. Ditto a decent shirt. When I grew up here in the 50s we had three men's clothing stores and two shoe stores and at least three independent groceries. Today all we have is Kroger's and Wal*Mart. This centralization of distribution of goods and services is a disaster in the making. (The only offered alternative is the gas-station-centric fast-food model where the mark-up is high and they depend on you to be frenetic. (And they don't sell socks!) No wonder health-care costs are so high... High-frustose corn syrup and diabetes go hand in hand and they are so profitable to BigAg and BigPharma.
Humans have probably exceeded the carrying capacity of Mother Earth since at least the American Revolution. Which would be close to the time of the invention of the steam engine. Before that time, the North American continent was in a natural balance. After? I don't have to tell you.
This 350ppm thing is good stuff, and Bill McKibben is making sense, but the United States remains the worst aggressor against Mother Earth, including Mountain Top Removal in three major eastern coal-producing states and we need to bring that to an immediate halt. It is ECOCIDE. IT IS ECOLOGICAL GENOCIDE. IT IS MURDER. IT IS SPECIES EXTINCTION, including ourselves. Ecologically, Mountain top removal is probably equivalent in global impact to the Iraq War, while nearly invisible in the MSM.
We are being suffocated under a pillow of lies.
End of rant. For now.
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OleManRiver,
Interesting ideas you have there. I hadn't thought of the plastic sheet solution. However, I had considered the 3,000 mile diameter mylar (aluminum vapor covered 10 mm poyester film) out in space as a temporary fix. Mylar weighs practically nothing so transporting it up there is feasable. The problem is positioning and keeping it there. Solar pressure on the mylar will push it toward the earth and re-entry. Perhaps some ion engines could be strapped to the frame to keep the position. If cooling (a temporary fix, I believe) were attempted, I do believe it must be done outside the atmosphere to be truly effective. That would at least give us some more time on the methane bomb.
As far as water is concerned, I really believe technology (cheap technology) will solve that one. Except in very severe desert climates, water vapor exists in sufficient quantity in the air to extract several gallons a day with small dehumidifiers. They need energy, of course. They would have to be solar powered and off grid. That would solve the drinking water problem. The greatest obstacle to sustainability is, I believe, our concept of land use. The earth is a garden. It was not meant to have large belching factories spewing all sorts of noxious chemicals. Yes, it's true that volcanoes can outdo man's poisons and do so on occasion, but that is not the norm. Until we can move our industrial processes off world to the moon or near earth orbit, we need to really get serious about raw materials processing. I don't know McKibben personally but I'm going to read up on him. Since I live in Vermont, I may get a chance to meet him. He seems to be a great advocate for a sane environment. At any rate, I think the two extremes (the belching factory and the golf course community) are out of line and unhealthy. We need to box those industries so whatever goes out wouldn't hurt a fly or a microbe in the air. No more "externalized cost" dumping on the biosphere. Will that make everything cost more? It depends on the point of view. Rape is pretty cheap if the police don't catch you. So we've been getting by on the cheap since the industrial revolution. Also, all those chemicals used in golf courses probably have upped the cancer rate on the poor animals and those rich human fools that live and golf there. The game needs a bigger ball that you can see in 2 foot grass. Down with golf courses. Time to pay our dues or we are done. This takes me back to the "We are all in this together" mindset that the greedy elite all over the world reject. They need to embrace it like a rope to a man hanging from a cliff. Scientists need to do some straight talk with these rich bastards. It takes more than 6,000 years to produce the natural top soil of fertile areas. It is now estimated that there are over 50 million microbes of different species and varieties that contribute to making topsoil. This ridiculously reductionist idea that it's just nitrogen fertilizer and some phosphates, potassium and calcium thrown in is naive. We are, scientifically speaking, only scratching the surface in our knowledge of the soil with all it's myriad life forms. The rich are abysmally stupid about this and lack any concept of humility and a shared existence with all the creatures on earth. And they are the only ones with the money to reverse our demise.
Well, they won't be able to say people like you and I didn't warn them. I obtained a bachelor in science with a major in biology late in life out of curiosity (confession-I wanted to study medicine but an ugly divorce got in the way). What I learned frightened me. And that was back in 89. I graduated from high school in 1964 so you see what I mean about "late in life".
Finally, your comment about driving distances reminded me of the history of town placement in the midwest. Most towns were placed about 12 miles apart so the horses could be used efficiently. the automobile changed all that but we may have to consider some electric, solar bicycle type transportation with a tow wagon for groceries or horses again. I don't know but, like you, I think it looks real bad.
By the way, that was a good rant. Keep em' comin'. I read all your comments too.
Oxygen levels at sea level are 210,000 ppm (parts per million); CO2 throughout the atmosphere is at 390 ppm.
Nothing to worry about regarding oxygen depletion from burning fossil fuels. Other effects, however, of CO2 increases are vastly more serious.
Oxygen content decreases with altitude, roughly as follows:
"As the altitude increases, the oxygen content of the air decreases dramatically. At 9,800 feet, for example, there's about 2/3 of the oxygen in the air than at sea level. At 20,000 ft, there is roughly half the oxygen content in the air. At 29,035ft, the summit of Everest, there is only a third of the oxygen in the air."
True with regard to CO2, but the geologic record with regard to methane and oxygen depletion is far from reassuring...
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Today I participated in the first protest march in my city devoted exclusively to the issue of climate change. There were 20 of us out of a city of some 5.6 million in population. I've been working on this issue since the mid-1980s. The pace of public education and action around global warming in the U.S. is old school glacial.
As we passed a boutique shopping area chanting our chants the doors were open on several stores and the young shoppers holding up clothes to buy stared at us with open mouths. Tattooed right-wing rednecks in the parking lot next to the liquor store glared at us in silent grim contempt, arms crossed defensively on their chests. Many young people came up and signed our banner. One young black man passing out coupons for wireless service and looking very anxious tried to explain to a member of our group that "Global warming is a hoax--science has proved all those PBAs and stuff are bullshit! But you keep on with your mission." People driving by in their cars honked and waved at us. Too few people joined us.
Early this AM I watched the PBS Frontline documentary entitled The Warning about former Commodities Futures Trading Commission chief Brooksley Born and how she tried to warn the Fed's "working group" of Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summer and Arthur Levitt about the danger to the economy of the "dark market" in over-the-counter derivatives in 1998. She was hammered by the "free market" fundamentalist "working group," saw her agency stripped of its powers and rendered so useless that she resigned out of regulatory impotence. Later that same year Long Term Capital Management went belly up. The "working group" quietly told 14 of the banks invested in it to secretly bail it out with over $3 Billion dollars and then killed yet another brief attempt to regulate derivatives that followed. The next year, 1999, Glass-Steagall was gutted and commodities futures trading was further deregulated--all with the hearty support of the "working group." Rubin left government to work for Citigroup, which now owes tax-payers $100 Billion dollars in "bailout" money. Greenspan was forced to publicly admit his anti-regulatory "free market" religion was a failed theory. Arthur Levitt says he now thinks Brooksley Born is "one of the most courageous and dedicated public servants I've ever known." Summers is a top advisor to Obama. Brooksley Born is warning that because the basic problem of regulating OTC derivatives has not been solved, we are still facing the likelihood of similar economic implosions. On Wall Street it's wild and secretive speculatory business as usual using the same failed model.
Immediately after that program finished I switched channels to watch little girls from Bangladesh--a country already suffering from increased flooding due to the effects of global warming on the melting of the Himalayan glaciers and shifting rainfall patterns. She and several little girls from her village must trek back and forth to boat landings and take boat rides for hours several times a day to fetch enough clean drinking water for their families. The inundation of her area has contaminated several pre-existing wells and the government lacks the resources to deal with the situation. Bangladesh has one of the smallest carbon footprints of any nation on Earth.
So I have this image in my head of the prideful multi-millionaire Mr. Greenspan stubbornly admitting the failure of his anti-regulatory "economic model"--the effects of which are still shaking down economies around the world and devastating the biosphere--juxtaposed with these poverty stricken little girls who have to serve as beasts of burden every day just to provide their families with safe water to use.
I think it's time that Left-wing protesters start trotting out guillotines at all our events like one recent event I read about in California--whether they are real or just mock-ups. Heads need to roll in our atavistic upper-class. Burning these pigs in effigy just doesn't express the right symbolism. Americans used to have sufficient sense of moral outrage to tar and feather crooked politicians, tax collectors and judges and ride them out of town on a rail.
I just finished watching The Warning last night too...
Nothing else to say but, right on!!!
"...if we cannot save 350,000 Maldivians from rising seas today then we cannot save the millions in New York, London or Mumbai."
Very true! And we cannot.
"We need a very rapid halt to the use of coal, gas and oil..."
If global warming is to be stopped then yes we do need a rapid halt to the burning of fossil fuels. And that is as likely to happen as that the earth will move a little further from the sun.
Civilization, as most of us know it, is completely dependent on the burning of fossil fuels. To stop global warming would require us to quickly end our civilization.
Our civilization will indeed end but it will not be by voluntary action taken by politicians. They simply cannot deliberately bring about the needed 'Greatest Depression' in the history of the world which would reduce worldwide consumption drastically and permanently as well as reducing the populaton of the world drastically and permanently.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
I highly recommend you view the PBS Frontline documentary entitled The Warning. Pay attention to the figure cited for size of the derivatives market by 1998, let alone where it is--still unregulated and poorly understood--even today. Look at the conspiratorial relationship between the "working group" and 14 of the biggest banks which still exists. Consider that there is a reason why the TARP "bailouts"--which were sold to the public as a way for the government to "buy up" all the bad bundled mortgage CDOs and related derivatives instruments--were quietly used as a liquidity/stock market slush fund by the banks--WHO KEPT ALL THE BAD PAPER ON THEIR STILL SECRET BOOKS. The fact is neither the public nor the government really knows the depth of the hole the anti-regulatory "workiing group" and corrupt banks and insurance firms like AIG have dug for us. But it had global ramifications and still does.
Thanks for your dogged efforts.
The derivatives market was "valued" (before the mini-crash we just went through) at something near a QUADRILLION dollars - a THOUSAND TRILLION - $1,000,000,000,000,000 - imaginary "value" that dwarfs the annual production of the entire global economy by a couple of orders of magnitude - obviously delusional "value" that is whip-sawing the REAL economy as the "masters of the universe" continue to flip the levers of their narcissistic power to extend their fantasy rule...
Beyond all hope, they have managed to briefly prop up their game for some few months again...
Get ready for the REAL crash...
There is no point in calling for a rapid replacement for the use of coal and oil unless you can offer something (much more benign) that can be used to replace the "benefit" the above provides to the "offending" people who use it.
While the "Atmoshsperic Vortex Engine" is a credible means to achieve this end, it needs more support from the community if it is ever going to be developed. As of yet there has been no credible scientific proof or even indication that the concept will not work. It can even be used for geoengineering purposes, providing and extending snow cover over tundra areas to reflect sunlight during the spring and fall.
While Mr. McKibben and others may be well-meaning, without an alternative energy plan of sufficient scope and dimension, there's not even a "snowballs chance in hell" that anything useful will ever come of his demonstrations and rantings.
Ref: http://vortexengine.ca
Thanks for your efforts, you seem very convinced about the AVE.
It seems to me that there is no need for "credible scientific proof... that the concept will not work." What would be needed is "credible scientific proof that the concept WILL work."