11.01.09
Carbon Cuts: 350 Is Not Adequate
RG mail
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/01-4
Published on Sunday, November 1, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Carbon Cuts: 350 Is Not Adequate
by Karyn Strickler
Seeing children, activists, and ordinary people in 181 countries come together around 350.org’s [1] worldwide at 5,200 day of action events last week was truly inspirational. Their goal of putting the focus on science and citizens and not special corporate interests and backroom deals is admirable. They hoped to influence the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations in Copenhagen, Denmark in December to lower greenhouse gas emissions.
But their message could be dangerous, since in his paper, “Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Society Aim,” NASA Climate scientist Jim Hansen said recently, “The evidence indicates…that the safe upper limit for atmospheric CO2 is no more than 350ppm.”
If burning fossil fuels like coal and oil during industrialization has created the mess we’re in with climate change, it seems only logical that we should aim for pre-industrial levels of atmospheric CO2 of 280 ppm. We should be aiming for a number that is sure to reverse climate change, especially now that feedback effects like methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times more powerful than CO2, is bubbling out of melting permafrost in the arctic and could rapidly accelerate climate change. If we’re organizing around a goal that is too little, too late, with the survival of humanity hanging in the balance, we not just wasting time, we’re toying with our own annihilation.