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Can 350.org Save the World?
Groups gear up to issue an emergency alert that carbon dioxide in the global atmosphere has already passed a tipping point.
Here in Australia, for instance, the government last week decided to postpone any real action for another year, citing the recession. It weakened major elements of its so-called emissions trading scheme, bowing to pressure from the coal industry, which is the country's biggest exporter, and other major polluters.
In Washington, meanwhile, the Obama administration is valiantly helping to push a bill through Congress that would finally set a cap on U.S. carbon emissions. Introduced by Reps. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), it has the support of most environmental groups and represents the culmination of years of hard lobbying work. And if the leaks coming out of the committee are correct, it's watered down with lots of loopholes and compromises. These concessions are clearly necessary to win passage, but they may also limit the speed and breadth of the legislation's impact.
The trouble is, physics and chemistry aren't adjusting their schedule to fit our political and economic convenience. Each week brings new accounts of crashing ice sheets and spreading droughts. The scientific journal Nature said in its April 29 cover story that "a growing number of scientists agree that the CO2 challenge is even greater than had been previously thought."
As politics gets slower, global warming speeds up. The problem isn't feckless officials. Obama has a dream team of climate specialists: Clinton administration EPA veteran Carol Browner as energy czar, Harvard physicist John Holdren as top science advisor, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu as Energy secretary and Oakland activist Van Jones as White House green jobs coordinator.
And the problem isn't that environmental groups aren't working hard enough. I've never seen them work more tirelessly, with lobbying efforts in capitals around the world.
In fact, the problem is pretty simple: The environmental movement isn't big enough. It's one of the most selfless of advocacy efforts. But the movement has been sized to save whales and build national parks and force carmakers to stick catalytic converters on exhaust systems. It's nowhere near big enough to take on the fossil fuel industry, the biggest player in our global economy. It's like sending the Food and Drug Administration to fight the war in Afghanistan.
Exxon Mobil Corp. made more money last year than any U.S. company in the history of money. That gives it more clout than all the green groups combined. Which is why, if the Copenhagen conference is going to be anything but a disaster, we need to build a stronger movement. All around the world. Very fast.
That sounds quixotic, but maybe not. I'm here in Australia, organizing people for a new campaign called 350.org. We take our name from the most important number in the world, a number that scientists only identified about 18 months ago. It's the amount of carbon dioxide, measured in parts per million in the atmosphere, that scientists now say is the safe maximum for the planet -- a maximum we're well past. Currently, our atmosphere holds 387 parts per million, which is precisely why the Arctic is melting, precisely why Australia is catching on fire.
Our plan is simple. We asked people around the world, through our website, to hold organized actions on Oct. 24 -- from high in the Himalayas to underwater on the Great Barrier Reef, from Easter Island to inner-city America -- in an effort to take that number and drive it into the human imagination. If we can, it will help the world understand that this is not some future problem to be set aside until conditions improve, but a capital-E emergency now overtaking the Earth that demands a powerful and urgent global response. We can reboot the conversation, make it about the peril we face but also about the promise of green jobs and clean economies.
So far it's working. Though 350 parts per million carbon dioxide is an arcane number, those three digits mean the same thing in Delhi and China and Melbourne and D.C. Already, more than 700 actions have been planned in a third of the countries of the world. There will be 350 bicyclists leaving on 350-kilometer trips, and 350 surfers on the waves in one beach town after another; 350 divers at the Great Barrier Reef.
Environmental groups from across the spectrum have pledged to help, as have human rights organizations such as Oxfam, and big networks of young people in the developing world, and leaders from every faith community -- hundreds of churches have pledged to ring their bells 350 times on Oct. 24.
The news coming out of world capitals makes it clear that we need more than lobbying by environmentalists to get the changes the science demands. We need a movement, a groundswell, to give those lobbyists the clout they need. But we can make it happen only if we join together fast.
20 Comments so far
Show Alldbl post.
"The news coming out of world capitals makes it clear that we need more than lobbying by environmentalists to get the changes the science demands."
Better and easier still, ban all lobbyists, bribes and go to publicly financed campaigns.
publicly financed campaigns and limit the amount of money to 3 T.V. airtime slots each. I've seen enough of the bums running for office as it is; the longer the campaign season, the less likelihood I'll bother to vote.
Only an anti-capitalist, pro-parecon movement can (give the human race a chance to) end global warming.
--
Eric Patton
Cincinnati, OH
ebpatton@yahoo.com
Thus quoth the parecon windup doll, who posts the same boilerplate on all issues.
This guy is an embarrassment to Michael Albert and Noam Chomsky, neither of whom would EVER counterpose the maximalist program of parecon to intermediate steps needed to sustain a decent human life short of paradise.
This guy is a crank--please ignore.
I disagree. He's simply following the crank politics of Michael Albert. As to Chomsky, although he is very good at exposing the ills of the society, I have yet to hear him come up with any solution.
You disagree with what?
Whether you agree with parecon or not, Albert has never counterposed his maximalist program to the struggle for intermediate strategic goals in the way that the windup doll does.
Chomsky has been supportive of many of the precepts of parecon, but again--he does not champion in windup-doll fashion, mechanically couterposing it to the struggle for every specific progressive demand--neither does Albert. That was my point.
Actually, Chomsky (who's politics are libertarian anarcho syndicalist - he's a member of the IWW) had nothing to do with the formulation of Parecon.
Albert's co-author of the Parecon idea is economist Robin Hahnel. I have tried to remind Eric that Albert and Hahnel themselves would be considered "coordinator class" by the way.
But I do tend to agree with struggle, that Albert political fomulations do seem to be hurt by his lifelong isolation among fellow 60's activists at South End Press and Z-Magazine - never having actually worked in a real, large, complex workplace.
But as far as ibnoring Eric Patton, we were doing just that until you came here. Nonetheless, he has the right to post here like anyone else.
I did not state or imply that Chomsky had founded the formulations of parecon--but he has written supportively of its precepts.
Second, you say "we" were ignoring Patton. Does that mean you speak for everyone on the list? That's a rather grandiose self-conception for a man of the people.
Finally, I neither stated nor implied that the windup doll does not have the right to post here. I simply encouraged people to ignore him when he does.
Well...it's not really that "carbon dioxide in the global atmosphere has already passed a tipping point." It's more the case that the global Technocracy has passed a tipping point. Our world will not be "saved;" it will be terraformed. Homo Sapiens will not be saved, we will be replaced by Homo Sapiens 2.0 and AI robots. Check out http://www.sillyconvalley.net/siliconvalley/toursiliconvalley.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming
Congratulations to everyone who has significantly changed their lifestyle to help mitigate global warming. Don't be discouraged that others fail to do the same. We have to allow for free will. So the most we can and should do is set a good example by kindly rejecting fascist production, propaganda, and policies.
We're building the infrastructure to make this task easier. It includes the information infrastructure that helps us understand the difference between the Whole Foods supermarket chain and our local farmer's markets. And the difference between 35 mpg and 150 mpg hybrid electric vehicles. And the difference between healthcare "reform" that keeps the cost growing and revolution that halves the cost. The difference between energy sources that enable war and energy sources that eliminate war.
It simplifies things to remember the driving force behind the the fascist production, propaganda and policies: The elites, who are trying to sell us something that benefits them at our (and the biosphere's) expense, but camouflaged as something that benefits everyone. This is a key strategy in the elites' war on people. It was perfected in the early 20th century USA by "public relations" propagandists intent on building a society of consumption slaves, to power the empire.
"And the difference between 35 mpg and 150 mpg hybrid electric vehicles."
Once again "CARS ARE NOT THE ANSWER!"...
There was an interesting OpEd in the New York Times Saturday about the
proposed "cash for clunkers" program being touted by car enthusiasts in Congress to prop up the sagging Auto industry.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/16/opinion/16margonelli.html?scp=1&sq=clunkers&st=cse
Here is the upshot estimate of what a revised program would save from that OpEd:
"Nationally, exchanging vehicles that get 20 m.p.g. for those getting 32 m.p.g. would reduce annual household gasoline consumption by more than a third — conservatively about 225 gallons. Multiplied by six million cars, that’d be a total savings of 1.35 billion gallons of gas a year, or about 1 percent of total American consumption..."
This is with an expenditure of $4.5 Billion to encourage more fuel efficient cars.
Compare this with the savings possible with a gas tax to cut driving with the funds raised allocated to mass transit operations.
With gas prices hitting $4 per gallon before getting cheaper by year's end
gasoline consumption was cut by 8% in 2008 without doing anything.
With the high gas prices people flocked to mass transit in droves and cut their driving even as ironically many mass transit agencies CUT services.
This shows what is possible by diverting people from cars altogether to mass transit without doing anything other than increasing gas prices.
Imagine instead if the $4.5 Billion for clunkers trade-ins were instead spent on
INCREASING mass transit operations around the country which are being axed.
There would be enough to stave off the NYC MTA cuts, New Jersey Transit anticipated cuts of $62 Million, and other mass transit cuts around the country.
If gas consumption was decreased by 8% without any real efforts it could easily be
cut by 20% in a year with serious increases in train and bus service on existing
routes requiring no new construction.
This is opposed to a reduction of only 1% to subsidize the continued auto obsession which has many more Green impacts than just gas consumption - the whole consumption of resources for all the cars, the 6 lane highways, their endless maintenance, the
police largely devoted to traffic control, Emergency Rooms processing auto accidents,etc,etc,etc.
To help the US transportation manufacturing industry, part of the expansion could be for mass transit agencies to buy fleets of vans and mini-buses to provide the last mile of service desperately needed to make mass transit in this country viable and attractive.
We need to make this an urgent priority as the first step to 350 ..
I agree with you observations, but there is another factor - increasing fuel efficiency, by itself, doesn't work. In an economy that requires increasing consumption of resources, a more effcient car simply gets driven more. I have Prius owners actually tell me that they drive their Priii more than the cr it replaced. Some even moved to a further out suburb. Alternatively, higher fuel efficncy simply allows RE developers to move to even more sprawling models of development - forcing even greater car depencence.
Similar things happen when someone gets a high efficiency central AC or furnace.
Efficincy improvements only work if there is also a substantial increase in the fuel or electricity cost.
Achieving high usage of public transit requires a rejection of the suburban model. Americans need to "come home again" to the compact communities they used to live in. But I've been just shouting at a wall (as my nicks get assassinated one by one)regarding this.
"It's like sending the Food and Drug Administration to fight the war in Afghanistan."
Actually not a bad idea! Declare opium a medicine, like aspirin (and cheerios). After all, it was Bayer that introduced the world to heroin and sold it over-the-counter in the U.S.
Meanwhile, CO2 emissions are probably just the "tip of the iceburger" so to speak, the trigger for the even more threatening "methane burp" that comes with the thawing of the tundra.
Not to besmirch McKibben's effort here. He really is one of the good guys, but the global warming issue really is much bigger than CO2. It is about a total revolution in the way people live and travel.
-30-
dear mr. mckibben...........
'and in too many places, the effort seems to be going nowhere'..........
so much for earthbound entities..........
have you tried addressing god with these requests?????
(just joking..........)
Yes, I'm sure holding "organized actions" to raise "awareness" to lobby government officials so that they in turn pass legislation to decrease CO2 emissions is really going to work.
The elephant in the room here is that CO2 emissions are not going down without a complete rethinking of our growth dependent economic system. You can convert the entire US auto fleet to Priuses, replace every household's appliance with new low energy consumption devices, and mandate recycling and other energy saving schemes, it won't make any difference in the long run as long as we are riding this exponential growth prerogative - a measly 2% annual growth is still exponential growth with the economy doubling every 35 years (with corresponding increases in resource & energy consumption & population).
To see where the priorities of the powers that be really lie, just look at the panic and reaction to the recent credit crisis and recession. From an environmental point of view, is this not exactly what 350.org is looking for? less energy consumption, less economic activity, and a welcome reprieve from the growth juggernaut for the environment. But even beloved Obama is doing everything in his power to "stimulate" the economy and get things growing again like in the good old days so that we can have more jobs, more resource consumption, more energy usage etc... As long as we measure a nation's success by its GNP growth, CO2 emissions aren't coming down, and it's about time Bill McKibben and his fellow overpaid paper pushers in the increasingly corporatized environmental movement got serious and started addressing these issues.
I would suggest reading Endgame by Derick Jensen for those who would like a glimpse at what will have to be overcome for an real change to occur.
This consumer,growth orientated, and abusive culture most likely will not respond until they find the water is boiling and the flesh is being cooked off.
To be surprised that governments and business are stalling with the same one liner " the environment has to be balanced against the economy" has been used to the detriment of humans from the beginning of this corrupted culture, and now as then it is utter nonsense.
Collapse of this culture is very likely as the problems that need solving while not insurmountable, have become crisis and and all diversions from the path that would lead to there solutions is just so much psycho babel.
Power will facilitate it's own failure. Our efforts will underline it. Time is up.
It's the weekend, the regular crew must be on holiday. Since the science is said to be closed here I won't offer my thoughts on the 350 alarmist CO2 limit. In another article here, there was concern about food and crop yields. CO2 is a natural fertilizer for crops and plants. Reduce it, and crop yields go down.
Perhaps the effort is going nowhere because corporations rule the world as David Korten once noted. One Senator recently noted that the banks [and other corporations] own congress. I might add, they also own the presidency. The more things change, the more they stay the same.