Take action
Toolbox
Published: October 23, 2009
Tomorrow will be a day to raise awareness about the most important challenge confronting the world. It is the International Day of Climate Action, organized by a grass-roots organization with roots in Vermont.
The group behind the worldwide event is 350.org, which was co-founded by Bill McKibben, writer in residence at Middlebury College and one of the world's important authors on climate change. As of late this week, the group had helped to coordinate more than 4,000 "actions" in more than 170 countries to draw attention to the number 350.
That is the number of parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that scientists have determined to be the upper limit before disastrous climate consequences take hold. Three-hundred fifty is now the target for those seeking to reverse climate change.
The events of Saturday are all about raising awareness. In Rutland, events at the Farmers' Market will include the distribution of energy-efficient light bulbs and clothespins. A yoga studio will be leading 350 minutes of yoga, movement and meditation. A church will sponsor 350 minutes of prayer and collect 350 pieces of food for a local food shelf.
Photos of participants at the Farmers' Market will be sent to Copenhagen where a United Nations conference on climate change will be gathering later this year. Similar actions around the world are meant to impress on those attending the conference that people across the globe are aware of the importance of the number 350.
The group 350.org has gained the support of Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who wrote an essay appearing Thursday in USA Today highlighting the activities of Saturday, which include, not just clothespins in Rutland, but actions in what he called the world's "iconic places," including Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa, and the peaks of the Himalayas.
Tutu makes the point that it was through unity that the people of South Africa ultimately defeated the apartheid regime that had oppressed its people for decades. It will be through unity, he says, that the peoples of the world are able to pool their efforts to turn back climate change.
Tutu has sought to turn the focus of climate talks to the most vulnerable countries. He said of the 28 countries most vulnerable to climate change, 22 are in Africa. These include Kenya, which is already suffering through a disastrous drought. Also imperiled is the island nation of the Maldives, which may be entirely underwater in a few years.
Feel-good events in Rutland or South Africa are not going to save the world. But a worldwide demonstration of awareness of the climate challenge can change the atmospherics around the discussions conducted by policymakers.
Part of the problem that environmentalists and others have had in spurring action on climate change has been inertia caused by doubt, hesitation or defeatism. And yet leading scientists have made a persuasive cause that there is no room for doubt that climate disaster is upon us, that the need for action is urgent and that success in curbing emissions is possible.
Impatience among people around the world will be necessary to show policymakers that they will be supported if they take the kind of action needed to turn back the parts per million to 350. We are already at 390 parts per million, and Arctic ice has been melting at a rate faster than the climate scientists had projected.
"In South Africa, we showed that if we act on the side of justice, we have the power to turn tides," Tutu wrote of Saturday's activities. "Worldwide, we have a chance to start turning the tide of climate change with just such a concerted effort today."
Just a few years ago policymakers in the United States feared taking action on climate change. Now we know that the failure to act will have fearsome consequences, which have already begun. The people need to lead on Saturday so that the leaders may finally follow.
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