350 Updates

Smoking Causes Cancer. Carbon Pollution Causes Extreme Weather.

Duncan Meisel
Posted by Duncan Meisel - 07/13/12, 10:58am

Cross posted from NRDC's Switchboard blog. Post written by Dan Lashof - read the entire thing here.

Smoking Causes Cancer. Carbon Pollution Causes Extreme Weather.

It really doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.

Surgeon_General's_warning_cigarettes.jpg

We dump billions of tons of carbon pollution into the atmosphere each year. As a result, the concentration of carbon dioxide has increased by 40%. Excess carbon dioxide traps excess heat in the atmosphere. Excess heat causes extreme heat waves, droughts, and storms.

And that’s what we have been seeing. In June alone, 170 all-time high temperature records were broken or tied in the United States, and more than 24,000 daily high temperature records have been broke so far this year. If the climate weren’t changing, we would expect to see about the same number of record highs and record lows set each year due to random fluctuations. That’s what we were seeing fifty years ago, but during the last decade there were twice as many record highs as record lows. So far this year the ratio has been 10 to 1.

Click here to read the entire post.

 
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Expect to hear more from East Asia

Aaron Packard
Posted by Aaron Packard - 07/13/12, 3:58am

We've just finished 4 days of 350 Climate Leadership Workshop, here in Bogor, Indonesia, with 20 truly remarkable leaders from around the East Asia region. The workshop brought both new people in to the movement, as well as the leaders of 350 groups in places like Vietnam, Philippines, Burma, China, and of course Indonesia. It was incredibly inspiring to hear first-hand the impressive scale of the 350 movements in Vietnam and the Philippines - where up until now, we only had an inkling of what our organizers had achieved in these places. The team from Vietnam walked us through a slideshow of event-after-event, involving hundreds of thousands of locals and celebrities. While the team from the Philippines took us through the carefully planned organising structure they are unrolling to support dozens of local groups around the country.

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It was with this depth of experience and expertise that the relatively small group of 20 people made plans to scale up the 350 movement in a region that includes 1/3 of the world's population. While often faced with difficult political contexts, plans were made to take on fossil fuel subsidies, coal expansion, and push a strong drive for renewable energy deployment, and people-powered solutions. 

From here on in, expect to hear more amazing stories as the East Asia 350.org movement pushes forward with greater regional unity and resolve. Zeph from the Philippines summed it up well:

"I felt that I am connected to a bigger and stronger network of young leaders that had committed themselves to solve the climate crisis in whatever way possible. It is inspiring and moving to share the spirit of solidarity among countries. We are not perfect, but we choose to be here to be better leaders."

It's with that commitment, that workshop participants are now on their way home, and already planning to run their own local workshops, build-up local groups and take the 350 movement to scale. Onwards we move!

 
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Adaptation in the Midwestern United States amid raging drought conditions

May Boeve
Posted by May Boeve - 07/12/12, 12:40pm

Drought conditions persist in many parts of the midwestern United States today, and livestock, crops, farmers, and communities that depend on them (I count myself on that list) are suffering alongside it. The Chicago Tribune reported that "Nearly two-thirds of the nine-state Midwest region was in some stage of drought in the week ended July 10, up from just over 50 percent a week earlier, according to the Drought Monitor, a weekly report on drought throughout the country compiled by U.S. climate experts. A third of the region was in severe to exceptional drought, up from about a quarter of the region a week earlier, it said."

Our friends at the 25 x 25 Initiative have been working with farmers, scientists, and policymakers to assess what adapation measures can be taken in the midst of these climate-driven disasters. To learn more about what they are doing, here's an initial report.
 

Please get in touch with us at organizers@350.org if you live in the Midwest and are seeking help and there is a way we can be working together.

 
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The case for civil disobedience: Peter Nix's personal journey from oil sands consultant to arrested carbon buster

Jamie Henn
Posted by Jamie Henn - 07/12/12, 12:35pm

We wanted to share this great essay by Peter Nix, a former oil sands consultant who took part in the blockade of a coal train in White Rock, British Columbia this May. It's a compelling read, as well as an honest and open account of how Peter struggled with the decision to take part in the action. As we work to make the world a better place, I think many of us struggle with many of the same questions: how much are we willing to risk to stand up for our beliefs? What will our colleagues or family think of us when we do something a bit more "radical"? Peter's essay takes on those questions and more -- have a look. 

 
The case for civil disobedience: my personal journey from oil sands consultant to arrested carbon buster
 
As I packed for my short journey to the seaside town of White Rock, I explained to my 15-year son why my picture might be in the next day’s newspaper or TV.  But I burst into tears.
 
I told him about my concerns about my coming act of civil disobedience: the risk of large fines, lawsuits from the railway company, violent reactions from anarchist outsiders or provocateurs, and the possibility that I would not be able to visit the US with a conviction on my record.  
 
But you know, I think my tears stemmed from a more fundamental fear of being scorned; treated as an outsider by my old-timers hockey team, or with thinly veiled contempt by some family members.  Like a first-time nudist, I feared exposing myself to my own community.  
 
Photo: Rob Baxter 
 
But inaction on climate change is not a moral option - not for government and not for you and me as citizens.   Yes, this may sound arrogant; and you, the reader, may be frightened and even hostile to any call to change your life’s journey away from a carbon-fuel based lifestyle.  
 
But there are many benefits if you and I act in a positive manner on the climate change crisis – more sustainable and social communities, more public spaces and conviviality, more local control of our jobs and economy, cleaner air and a diverse habitat for wildlife.  But that is another article.
 
After my talk with my son, I left the house to travel on the ferry with a small group from Vancouver Island to White Rock.  Over breakfast, we discussed our personal lives.  We were a tad scared - none of us were professional protesters.  
 
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Why do Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan Support Taxpayer Giveaways to 1, 3, and 4 Most Valuable US Corporations?

Daniel Kessler
Posted by Daniel Kessler - 07/11/12, 2:01pm

Fortune Magazine is out with its Fortune 500, its annual ranking of America's largest and most powerful corporations. In pole position is Exxon, whose profits in 2011 rose 35% to $41.1 billion. A good haul, by any definition. Only Wal-Mart stood in the way of a clean sweep by oil and gas companies at the top of the leaderboard, with Chevron ($26.9 billion profit) and ConocoPhillips ($12.4 million profit ) taking spots 3 and 4.

So with oil companies making more money than in the history of money, why do Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan continue to support taxpayer giveaways to these massive corporations? Oil companies enjoy about $4 billion annually in federal tax subsidies, and Ryan's budget, which Romney supports, preserves these giveaways while cutting back on Medicare, Medicaid, education, and other vital services.
 
When you factor in subsidies for gas and coal, fossil fuel companies will enjoy about $113 billion over the next 10 years in government handouts. In case you are curious, that $113 billion would buy about 2.8 million Chevy Volts (at about $40k per car) and would weatherize about 45 million US homes. 
 
Defenders of these subsidies will tell you that if we get rid of them gas prices will go up and we will curtail American oil exploration. Here's what the experts say: Guess again. Gas prices are set at the global level in a global market, so removing subsidies here would have no effect on prices. In fact, a 2009 study from the non-partisan Resources for The Future found that if subsidies were cut, the average person would spend, at most, just over $2 more each year on petroleum products. I can probably afford that and I bet you can, too.
 
And disrupting American energy production? Probably not. Ask yourself, are the oil, coal and gas going to suddenly move to the North Sea? My guess is that with subsidies or not, Exxon will still want at the fossil fuels here. 
 
Want another reason to end these subsidies? How about the fact that fossil fuels are cooking the planet. In June, 3,215 daily high temperature records were set; so far this year, more than 2.1 million acres have burned in wildfires. Step 1 to solving the climate crisis is to stop funding the corporations that are causing the problem. Step 2 is to actually charge polluters for polluting and to use that money to grow our clean energy economy. Even ExxonMobil admits that we need a carbon price but our Congress hasn't gotten it done.
 
So as Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan crisscross the country this summer and fall calling President Obama a reckless socialist who wants to grow government, just remember that it's Romney and Ryan that want to keep the flow of taxpayer money going to the country's richest corporations, not the president.
 
To find out about what you can do about this, and to learn more about the Sanders-Ellison bill to end all fossil fuel subsidies, please visit www.endfossilfuelsubsidies.org.
 
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Bill McKibben on UP with Chris Hayes

Phil Aroneanu
Posted by Phil Aroneanu - 07/09/12, 6:04am

Yesterday morning, Bill McKibben went on MSNBC with Chris Hayes to discuss the extreme weather throughout the world, and its connection to climate change. Take a peek and share it around!

 
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Change of plans.

Bill McKibben
Posted by Bill McKibben - 07/07/12, 5:18am

Below is the note we just sent out to our friends accoss the USA.

Dear Friends,

I think I screwed up.

Yesterday 350.org sent out an email, telling people that we were going to melt a big hunk of ice in the form of the word "Hoax?" in front of Capitol Hill. We asked for money for it, and also for relief efforts for victims of the heat wave. The idea was simple enough: if this epic heatwave gripping the nation has one small silver lining, it's that its reminding people that global warming is very very real. And the response was strong -- we raised the $5000 it would have taken to pull off the event, and far more than that for relief efforts.

But we also heard from old friends, especially in nearby West Virginia, who asked us not to do it. The sight of ice melting while they sweltered would be too hard to take; their region, they pointed out, is as hard hit as any in the country by the heat wave, and it would make people feel like their plight wasn't being taken seriously. Bob Kincaid, at Coal River Mountain Watch, said: "Our work in Appalachia is hard enough as it is, since we must ever contend with the well-funded coal industry PR machine." They'd use, he said, the sight of that melting ice to make people feel disrespected.

That makes sense to me.

It's sometimes hard to balance what we should do in one place with what we should be doing around the globe. Climate denial in the U.S. has huge implications for, say, the two million people in Assam, India, currently flooded out of house and home -- it's really important to fight people who deny science and hold up needed action. But it's not worth causing trouble to our friends in the process. And the people who fight mountaintop removal in Appalachia are some of our oldest friends; we've been, as it were, up and down the mountain with them. Movements only really work when they move together.

So: no ice melting on the mall this morning. We're sending out whatever the reverse of a press release is called. The money we collected will all go for heat and drought relief, and we hope it will do some good. If you'd like your contribution back, let us know (and we'll send a separate mailing to everyone who contributed to make sure they get that chance). It's been a long, hot, tough week everywhere east of the Rockies; let's hope the heat breaks soon.

Thanks,

Bill McKibben for 350.org

P.S. The note announcing this thing yesterday came from Jamie Henn, our communications director. But the idea was mine, not his. I'm a volunteer in this effort, and there are days when it definitely feels like you get what you pay for.

 
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Climate deniers vs. Record-breaking heat wave

The 350.org Team
Posted by The 350.org Team - 07/06/12, 12:59pm

We just sent this email out to 350 supporters in the USA. Not getting our emails? Sign up for updates here. 

Dear friends,

This is exactly what the climate scientists have been telling us to expect.

Ice hoax sculpture (artists rendering) The last few weeks -- from the record rainfall in Minnesota and Florida to the epic fires in the West, from the crop-shriveling drought in the High Plains to the “land hurricane” that left five million without power across the East -- this is what climate change feels like in its early stages. We’ve heard from friends and colleagues who have fled their homes -- but our leaders still aren't connecting the dots. 

There should be no doubters left. But of course, thanks to the power of the fossil fuel industry, the denialists still reign in DC: last year the House of Representatives voted to reject the widely accepted scientific consensus that human activities are causing climate change. The mainstream media isn't helping much either: only 3% of the stories about the wildfires even mentioned climate change. 

So tomorrow we’re going to DC to deliver a message to the climate deniers. In fact, the sun is going to deliver the message -- we’re just going to help. We're planning on setting up gigantic blocks of ice that say "Hoax?" right in the heart of DC. We'll see just how long it takes to melt away. Not long, probably -- the forecast is for over 100 degrees tomorrow.

We're hoping to raise $5,000 to build a massive "Climate Hoax" ice sculpture in DC -- and we'll send half of the money we raise to the Red Cross to provide direct relief to people impacted by the recent climate disasters. >>

Two years ago, in the middle of Washington DC’s record snowstorms (made possible by our wet new atmosphere) Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma had his grandchildren build an igloo to make fun of global warming -- Inhofe is the guy who called global warming the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." (Since then his home state has set the record for the warmest summer ever recorded in the United States.)

Inhofe's igloo stunt was silly and misleading -- but it captured the attention of the media and spawned legions of gloating climate deniers. Well, there's no reason climate deniers should have all the fun in DC. 

Like everything we do at 350.org, the ice sculpture will be people-powered -- your donations will help pay for it, and we've recruited 350 activists in DC to help with logistics on the ground. Even if we thaw some denial, though, it won’t matter if we don’t also melt away the laws that keep fossil fuel king. That’s why we’re campaigning hard this summer to end subsidies to the planet’s richest industry. In the coming weeks, we'll fan out across the country to town-halls and campaign events to ramp up the pressure on politicians who still haven’t committed to ending fossil fuel subsidies.

There's lots of work to be done -- but for now let's start a climate denial meltdown. Click here to donate to help build the sculpture: www.350.org/ice

Onwards,

Jamie Henn for the 350.org Team

P.S. Can you handle a little sarcasm? Check out Bill McKibben’s piece from the Daily Beast. Sorry if he’s a little pissed off -- it’s the heat.

P.P.S. The stories and images coming out from areas afflicted by this latest round of extreme weather are heart-wrenching -- you can make donations directly to The Red Cross for direct relief by texting "REDCROSS" to 90999 or by clicking here.

More Links and Info

STUDY: Media Avoid Climate Context In Wildfire Coverage - Media Matters: www.mediamatters.org/research/2012/07/03/study-media-avoid-climate-context-in-wildfire-c/186921

GOP-led House rejects science, 240-184 - ClimateProgress: www.thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/04/06/207842/gop-led-house-rejects-science-240-184 

 
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