banner to rally people around—too serious and too depressing, because we’re already well past the 350 mark. The atmosphere is currently at 392 ppm carbon dioxide, which is why the Arctic is melting. So far, we’ve racked up some successes; in October 2009, we held an International Day of Ac- tion that created some 5,200 dem- onstrations in 181 countries. That’s a lot—in fact, CNN called it, “… the most widespread day of political ac- tion in the planet’s history.”
Online images posted from those
events banish wrong preconcep- tions people might have about who is and is not an environmentalist. Most of the rallies were orchestrated by poor, black, brown, Asian and young people, because that’s what most of the world is made up of. Six weeks later, at the 2009 UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, 117 na- tions endorsed that 350 target, which was good; except that they were 117 poor and vulnerable nations, not the richest and most addicted to fossil fuels. So, we fight on.
This October, we’re holding a 10/10/10 Global Work Party. It’s set to spread around the world, too, with people in thousands of communities doing something practical: putting solar panels on local schools, harvest- ing community gardens and planting mangroves along rising shorelines. In Auckland, New Zealand, they aim to repair every bicycle in every garage. The intention will be twofold. Point one is that bikes are good. Ditto solar panels. We need both in our communities. Point two acknowledges that we know we can’t solve climate change one bike path at a time. So we’re also intent on send- ing a strong political message to our leaders: If we can get to work, so can you. Right now. If I can climb up on the roof of the school to hammer in a solar panel, you can climb to the floor of the Senate and hammer out some helpful legislation. It’s time to shame our government and corporate leaders a little, and maybe inspire them, too. We all need to get to work ad- dressing climate change right where
we live, in our communities. We need to build towns and cities that make sense and create jobs for families. We also need to build a world that works, because the best organic gardener on Earth won’t be able to cope with 30 straight days of rain, or a month with no rain at all, without helpful policies. That means resorting to politics, which is another way of saying that we must work together as people for better solutions to climate change than what we have now. It can be beautiful. If you don’t believe me, check out the pictures at
350.org.
I dare you.
Bill McKibben is the author, most recently, of the bestselling Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet. He’s the founder of
350.org, and a scholar in residence at Middlebury College in Vermont. The Boston Globe this year described him as “…prob- ably the country’s leading environ- mentalist,” and Time called him “…the planet’s best green journalist.”
PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER TO PROTECT THE ENVIRONMENT
October 2010
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