Get Energy Smart! NOW!

As a part of a fundraiser for Ann Arbor’s Ecology Center at least 40,000 people (using Michelle Bachmann math) heard a great, sobering speech last night by the founder of 350.org, Bill McKibben.

I was fortunate enough to be there and have summarized the event below.

Bill McKibben, to the right in his 350.org t-shirt,
photo © Jennifer Esperanzais an author and environmental activist. The Global Day of Climate Action, sponsored by 350.org, on October 24 was likely the world’s largest day of activism ever, with 5200 actions taking place in 181 countries.

His latest book is Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future

Bill started his speech with a rundown of where we are on climate change.

20 years ago, when Bill wrote his first book “The End of Nature”, scientists already knew most of what they know today regarding climate change. By the mid 1990s, most scientists had determined a “robust solution” on climate change, and had figured out pretty much the whole puzzle except for one piece: how quickly changes to the earth’s climate, glaciers, etc., would take place.

Then in 2007, the arctic saw “violent” sea ice melt, ending the summer with 25% less ice than humans had ever seen. A similar amount of melting was seen with glacial ice, from the arctic to the Himalayas. The rapidity of this melt, and the rapid change in ocean acidification, was a surpise to scientists. This led many scientists to conclude that 350 parts per million of CO2 was the maximum amount that should be present to maintain the conditions on earth that life has adapted to. We are already at about 390ppm, and rising about 2ppm per year.

This rise in CO2 and other greenhouse gasses has led to a 1 degree Celsius rise in average global temperatures. This has been responsible for all of the melting we have seen, and has led to floods and violent storms (including Typhoon Morakot in Taiwan last August – which brought 114 inches of rain in 3 days and caused the worst floods in that country in 50 years – more info here) and droughts (like the recent one in Australia)

Further increases to CO2 and other greenhouse gasses will lead to more of the same and much worse.

What has the US Government done about this? Below is the line from Bill’s speech that probably got the biggest audience response. The US has a:

20 year unblemished bipartisan record of accomplishing nothing.

He went on to describe that the environmentalists of the world had the “Rock Stars” like Al Gore and James Hansen, but they didn’t have the movement. This is what 350.org is intended to do – to help kickstart a global movement to force political action worldwide. The Global Day of Climate Action was a smashing success, and showed, among other things, that environmentalism is not just for “rich white people” as the 20,000 Ethiopians who marched for climate action demonstrated:

Now it’s up to us to keep this ball rolling.

I asked Bill about Kerry/Boxer and he is not overly excited about it. Like other experts, he wants it strengthened. And he lamented the fact that Linsey Graham and Joe Lieberman (who he called his least favorite political figure) now seem to be leading this thing.

However, he agreed that we have to see major actions starting by 2012 or 2013 if we have a shot to turn this around. Personally, I don’t know how we are ever going to get anything better than Kerry/Boxer through this Congress. I know the arguments about carbon tax, and Bill indicated that he would probably support those, but I don’t know how we could get that through our government.

We have to keep the pressure on to make sure Kerry/Boxer doesn’t get worse.