For the Earth, 350.org: A Conversation With Bill McKibben on a New Strategy to Tackle Climate Change
For years, the environmental movement has suffered from a difficult image problem. Too often, potential allies are turned off by the constant gloom and doom emanating from much of the environmental movement. The perception is that the human stain on the earth’s face is too overwhelming, too hopeless, too baked into the cake for anyone to do anything meaningful about it. While it’s true that the issues facing our planet are numerous and daunting, the message about how to address them doesn’t necessarily have to be.
Enter 350.org. 350.org is the brainchild of seminal climate change activist Bill McKibben. With his book The End of Nature, published in 1989, McKibben delivered the first definitive text on climate change to the general reader and has been working to spread the word on climate change ever since. But beyond his book, which is now considered a modern environmental classic, McKibben has strived to constantly reinvent ways by which he can engage a larger audience, and get them active in the environmental movement. About five years ago, McKibben realized that speaking and writing weren’t enough and that his messaging needed to become more modern. When I spoke with McKibben this summer, I asked him what the impetus for the shift in strategy was. Ultimately, it was partly personal. “I started trying to organize differently after a trip to Bangladesh where I contracted dengue fever, realizing that global warming was causing the boundaries of the mosquitoes carrying it to expand and that the situation was more dire than we first thought.” This urgency sparked a shift in McKibben’s organizing strategy and ultimately led to the structure with which 350.org operates. Now, “We’re using social media to organize in ways we never have. We don’t organize on the web with e-mail petitions and such but use the Internet to organize things that happen in the real world, to get the old media to interface with new media,” McKibben said.
But what is 350?
In January 2008, a NASA scientist, James Hansen, published a paper that established an acceptable baseline for carbon dioxide (CO2) density in our atmosphere: 350. As in, no more than 350 parts per million. The number has now been adopted by many climate activists, including, most prominently, former Vice President Al Gore. The goal of 350.org, as McKibben says, is to document “actions that are aimed at taking the 350 number and tattooing it into hearts and minds of people.” Essentially, 350.org is looking to brand a number that simplifies the climate change argument and gives it a baseline goal in a message that is uncomplicated and useful in any language. Currently, the earth’s atmospheric CO2 density is right around 390 and increasing. “That’s why ocean levels are rising, coral reefs are dying…it’s physics and chemistry making their position known.” But does the fact that we’ve already surpassed an acceptable CO2 density spell inevitable doom? McKibben says no. He explains plainly, “It’s kind of like your doctor saying your cholesterol is too high. You have to do something about it. Climate change isn’t a future problem, it’s a present threat.”
October 24, 2009: International Day of Climate Action
“Whatever the opposite of intellectual property rights is, that’s what we want people to do with 350—adopt, steal, do whatever with it,” says McKibben. This fall, activists all over the world in nearly every country will create and document images of the number 350. Whether they’re made of human chains, or banners hiked to the tops of mountains, the goal is to gather as many actions as possible and broadcast them through the 350.org website, blogs, YouTube, Facebook and other social media and networking platforms.
As McKibben says, “Outdoors people are among the most important in these actions.” McKibben himself is a devoted cross-country skier and is pleased that plenty of prominent adventurers are already involved. 350 actions will take place on Mount Rainier, the Great Barrier Reef and the Flatirons, among countless other special natural places in the world. The goal, of course, is to get as many people as possible involved, from church groups to bike clubs from Johannesburg to Quito. But how big will this global day of action be? A year ago, McKibben couldn’t promise that it would be great, but the concept has taken hold and gained a lot of steam. “It’s going to be huge,” he says with confidence. On October 24, as the images of actions held all over the world come in via the web, in real time, they’ll be showcased on a huge video screen at the United Nations in New York City as well the 350.org site for the entire world to see.
The hope is that the multitude of actions will influence world leaders in the lead-up to the U.N. Climate Change Conference, being held in Copenhagen, Denmark, this December. The conference is the last time the parties of the UN Framework Convention will meet before the expiration of the Kyoto Protocol in 2010; setting a progressive climate change policy is imperative. The summit will be attended by representatives from nations, non-profiters, business people, researchers and press, all looking for a new way forward on the subject of climate change. “We’re not going to get 350 out of Copenhagen, because it’s too tough, too radical. But we’ll have established a baseline through actions, and the hope is that the conversation continues, not just drops like talks after Kyoto. We’ll see what happens.” What’s next after Copenhagen? McKibben laughs. “Sleep…and more actions.” w
For more information on how to get involved, go to 350.org and register your action. And check the Wend blog for Wend’s 350 action. Curious what an action looks like? Read Molly Loomis’ Footprint piece in this issue on her 350 action, in which she summited Mount Vinson, Antarctica, with a “350” banner.
