Bill McKibben
Bill MicKibben is an American environmentalist, writer and founder of 350.org, an international climate change campaign. Today at Klimaforum09 he shared the history of the organization he founded and why 350 parts per million (ppm) of CO2 is such an important goal to reach. For the past 10,000 years the carbon count was pretty stable at 275 ppm, but with the advent of the Industrial revolution some 200 years ago it began to rise with the burning of fossil fuels. In 1950 it reached 315 ppm, in the 80’s American Climatologist, James Hansen testified in Congress that scientists were getting very worried about the increases. But it wasn’t until the summer of 2007 that it became clear to scientists that we had passed the danger line. That was the summer that ice melts across the Arctic reduced the ice pack by 25%, way ahead of all scientific projections.
At this time climatologist came to an agreement that any CO2 level greater 350ppm was going to have a severe if not disastrous impact on our climate. Currently we are at 390 ppm, well past the agreed upon redline set by the majority of the planets climatologists. It is estimated that some 300,000 people a year are already dying from climate change and with glaciers melting, increasingly violent storms, desertification, rising sea levels, dying coral reefs and the warming of the seas future trends do not look good for the planet. Looking at the promises being made by member countries at the UN Climate Change Conference and calculating the predictable outcome, we can expect CO2 to reach 770ppm by 2,100. Which basically means a dead planet for our children’s children.
Isn’t it time to ask ourselves what do we want? And what are we going to do to achieve it? 350.org is building a global movement to reduce CO2 to 350ppm and kept it there in order to maintain a healthy functioning planet. McKibben, sponsored the largest global demonstration in the history of the planet on October 24th, when people at over 5200 events in 181 countries united to call for strong climate action. Today he asked, “If people around the world can get organized for change and come together why can’t our leaders?
President Mohamed Nasheed
The President of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, was released only a few years ago as a political prisoner and became the first democratically elected president. The Maldives are a group of 1,200 islands in Southern Asia in the Indian Ocean, south-southwest of India. They are an island nation acutely threatened by the rising sea levels. While they are small, here in Copenhagen they represent the little country that roared and have become one of the most vocal and stirring voices in Copenhagen.
In his speech President Nasheed stressed the power of people taking action on climate change, when he spoke to a packed audience at Klimaforum09, the alternative climate summit in Copenhagen, Monday evening. “The social movements have the power to save the planet from the effects of climate change. My message to you is to continue the process of movement building after the conference,” the President said. “We had no power, but our cause,” the President explained, before he went on to promise to turn his country into the first CO2 neutral society in the World in just ten years time. “Let us make the planetary goal of reaching 350 parts per million. We believe that if the Maldives can become carbon neutral so can larger countries.”