In This Review We’ll Learn About 350.org; the Science Behind 350; Successes From a Decade of Action; and, How To Get Involved. This Is Part of Our Series On Living Sustainably.
If you already know it’s important to stop climate change, here’s how you can get involved:
- Take a look at 350.org
- Try the Sustainability Roadmap with 40+ Solutions to Climate Change
- Check out #VoteWithOurMoney with 6 Steps to Help Stop Climate Change
If you want some more facts before making any decisions, let’s get into the details:
On my journey with sustainability I keep finding new people and organisations that do amazing things to help climate change and to improve our lives.
It’s one of the reasons I felt inspired to start Nafford Junction. My goal was always to create a central resource to make it easy for others to find ideas to grow, eat, and live sustainably.
One of the organisations that I found on my travels through climate activism is 350.org.
About 350.org
The movement was started in 2008 by a group of university friends in the USA and the author of one the first books on global warming for the general public, Bill McKibben.
The name, 350.org, came from the fact that 350 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the safe concentration for a habitable planet.
As of February 2022, there’s 418 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere!
350.org is all about reversing the climate crisis by ending the age of fossil fuels and transitioning to community-led renewable energy.
The climate crisis is immense so we need daring, courageous, and innovative solutions that solve the problems that we’ve created.
Fighting the climate crisis is also a fight against social injustice because the people that have done the least to cause climate change, are the ones that suffer the most.
350.org is about bringing together as many people as possible—students, unions, human rights and social justice groups, communities, faith groups, universities, business owners, and all who believe in the need for transformational change—to collaborate and put pressure on governments and the fossil fuel industry.
Now let’s look at the science behind 350.
The Science Behind 350
The science is complex but the basics are really quite, well, basic:
- It’s warming
- It’s us
- We’re sure
- It’s bad
- We can fix it
So, our beautiful miracle goldilocks planet is warming.
1. It’s Warming
Yes, planet earth, without humans, has always fluctuated in temperature, but, past mass extinctions were the result of greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere over the course of around 1,000,000 years.
The last mass extinction, the one that killed around 75% of all species, also had the help of an asteroid that hit the Gulf of Mexico and released a lot of sulphur that was stored underground.
The difference with this climate crisis is that we humans have released the same amount of carbon dioxide (plus other greenhouse gases) in just the last 200 years.
What took nature 1,000,000 years, took us only 200 years!
We’ve also lived through the five hottest years on record: 2016, 2015, 2017, 2018, and 2014
You can read more about this in our article on How To Sustain Life On Our Planet, inspired by the amazing David Attenborough and in his documentary, A life On Our Planet.
2. It’s Us
Still sceptical that it’s us humans that caused the current climate crises? Well, the latest IPCC (IPCC stands for Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), published in 2021, confirmed that global warming is ‘unequivocally’ human driven.
“Before the 18th century, when we in the industrial west began to burn coal, oil, and gas, our atmosphere typically contained about 280 parts per million of carbon dioxide. Those are the conditions “on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted.”
— Source: https://350.org/science/
The IPCC report stats that we must limit global warming to 1.5˚C above pre-industrial levels.
1.5˚C doesn’t sound much.
Well, it is huge.
Just try leaving your heating off in winter, pop the heating on and feel the difference between 15˚C and 16.5˚C, then consider that we live on a planet with an incredibly complex ecosystem that evolved to live in a very narrow window of temperature.
Science shows that a temperature rise of 2 degrees, rather than 1.5, would affect hundreds of millions more people. Twice as many plant, and three times as many insect species will lose vast swathes of their habitat.
To put 1.5 and 2 degrees into context:
Imagine the World’s oceans.
With a temperature rise of 1.5 degrees, by 2100 there could be a sea level rise of 40cm, which could become 1.5 metres by 2300.
With a temperature rise of 2 degrees, there could be a sea level rise of 50cm, which could become 2.7 metres by 2300.
Imagine how much water it takes to raise sea levels by 40cm, 50cm, 1.5 metres, or 2.7 metres. Imagine the amount of energy needed to heat all that water.
And, the temperature rise is very unevenly distributed around the planet. Some parts are warming up much more than others.
Oh, and it’s not like 1.5 will happen in another lifetime, we’re already getting closer to the preferable goal of 1.5 degrees. It’s happening now, in our lifetime.
3. We’re Sure
An overwhelming 97% of scientists agree that climate change is being caused by human greenhouse gas emissions.
That’s what the IPCC report confirmed.
It feels crazy to include a part that reinforces the fact that we’re sure the current climate crisis is caused by humans, but here goes.
Part of being dependent on fossil fuels is because of the lies and misinformation from the fossil fuel industry that knew the effects of burning fossil fuels as long ago as the 1970s. There’s a great video short on WaterBear that explains those lies:
Here’s one example:
“The oil company Exxon knew about climate change’s impact in the 1970s, and found out that action would impact their bottom line. As a result, they joined an industry-wide attack on the truth, creating a false debate that prevented action for decades. Now we know that Exxon, and other companies like Shell, have been taking actions to protect their infrastructure from climate change for decades — while fighting action to protect the rest of us.”
— SOURCE: https://350.org/science/
4. It’s Bad
The difference between 1.5˚C and 2˚C of global temperature rise could mean well over 10 million more migrants from sea-level rise.
The 2018 IPCC report confirmed that increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events is a result of climate change.
There’s already been 1˚C of warming. That warming has resulted in devastating impacts:
- Global grain yields have declined by 10% from heat waves and floods
- Over 1 million people living near coasts have been forced from their homes
- Millions more are expected to flee in the coming years
You can learn more about why we need to stay under 1.5˚C in The People’s Dossier on 1.5°C.
5. We Can Fix It
Whilst the climate crisis is a threat to our lives, now, and the future of our children and the human race, the amazing fact is we have the power to reverse climate change.
We have to:
- Keep fossil fuels in the ground
- Significantly increase solar, wind, and hydro energy
It might seem like keeping fossil fuels in the ground and increasing renewable energy is out of our reach, but those of us that can afford to choose where we spend our money do have the power to help stop climate change. Here are some examples of what you can do today and in your day to day life:
So that’s the science behind 350, now let’s take a look at some of the successes of 350.org.
350 Celebrates a Decade of Action
In 2009, 350.org mobilised people in 181 countries to give world leaders the message that we need a fair, ambitious, and binding climate treaty. CNN called it ‘the most widespread day of political action in our planet’s history.
In 2010, 350.org threw a Global Work Party, where people all over the world got their hands dirty for the benefit of the planet.
In 2011, 350.org led an ambitious effort to stop one of North America’s most dangerous pipelines.
In 2012, Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein’s Do the Math Tour showed the world that the fossil fuel industry already held existing stockpiles of coal, oil, and gas that, if used, would blow through our carbon budget five times over.
In 2013, 471 young activists from 135 countries were trained at Global Power Shift in Istanbul, Turkey. The newly trained activists held Power Shifts in their own countries, from India to Vanuatu, Ukraine to Thailand.
In 2014, The People’s Climate March in New York City saw an astounding 400,000 people took to the streets and over 2,000 actions around the world.
In 2015, 10,000 people were on the streets in Paris to usher in the Paris Agreement, supported by another 775,000 in the streets around the world. 195 signatories committed to reduce emissions – but nowhere near enough to stay below 1.5˚C.
In 2016, a week of action targeting coal, oil, and gas projects brought together 30,000 people in 20 countries. ‘Keep it in the ground’ became an international rallying cry. 350.org also launched the #ExxonKnew campaign after revelations that the fossil fuel company knew about climate change back in the 1960s but did nothing to stop it.
In 2017, 350.org celebrated their First Nations partners when the Energy East pipeline was cancelled in Canada, keeping 1.1 million barrels of tar sands oil per day in the ground. In Turkey, grassroots resistance forced cancellations of two coal plants in the Aliaga region.
In 2018, in Canada, Indigenous-led mobilisation forced the Federal Court of Appeal to overturn government approval of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline extension. New Zealand banned all new permits for new blocks of oil and gas exploration offshore. During Rise for Climate, a global day of action, 250,000 people mobilised around the world.
In 2019, the Lamu coal plant in Kenya was halted. Two states in Brazil passed fracking bans to leave shale gas reserves larger than North America’s Marcellus in the ground forever, and municipal bans across the country numbered 410. Responding to a call from youth from Fridays For Future, a record 7.6 million people took to the streets to strike for climate action as part of the Global Climate Strike — the biggest climate mobilisation in history.
The next 10:
You might also like the Climate Stories hub for grassroots stories across the global climate movement.
Get Involved With 350.org
The best ways to get involved with 350.org are:
- Sign up to their email newsletter
- Join a group near you
- Look at campaigns in your region
- Build your campaigning skills
- Donate to support 350.org
You can find information about all those options at Get Involved.
There are also lots of resources, graphics, photos, videos, and storytelling kits at 350.org Resources.
Here Is What You Can Do
- Take a look at 350.org
- Try the Sustainability Roadmap with 40+ Solutions to Climate Change
- Check out #VoteWithOurMoney with 6 Steps to Help Stop Climate Change
- Use the Company Directory to Help You Grow, Eat, and Live Sustainably
- Be inspired. We can help climate change if we do something about it
- Talk to your friends and colleagues
- Share this with others
Help Us Inspire Others
If you are passionate about helping climate change, please consider supporting Nafford Junction, you can:
- Become a Patron to Give Regular Contributions
- Buy Me a Coffee to Make a One-Off Contribution
- Create for Us and Publish Thought Provoking Content
- Become an Inspiring Leader and Advertise with Us
- Go to NaffordJunction.co.uk/support
Sources Used to Create This
- 350.org About – 350.org
- 350.org Science – 350.org
- IPCC
- Why Half a Degree of Global Warming Is a Big Deal – The New York Times
- Why 350? – MN350
- How Much Carbon Dioxide Is in the Atmosphere
- 10/10/10 Global Work Party: People Across The Planet Work With 350.org On Solutions To Tackle Climate Change (PHOTOS) | HuffPost Impact
- Do the Math
- Do the Math – The Movie
- Global Power Shift
- 350.org 2014 Annual Report
- Break Free from Fossil Fuels
- #ExxonKnew
- 350.org – Energy East: A timeline of how we won.
- Rise For Climate
- 350.org – The Lamu Coal Plant project in Kenya has been stopped by a court decision
- Fossil Free – Not one, but two fracking bans
- Fridays for Future
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pyx7Do7HDY
- Climate Stories Hub
- Get Involved
- 350.org Resources
Production Notes
This was produced by me, James Walters, as a personal project to help stop climate change by inspiring others to grow, eat, and live sustainably.
Any advice given is the opinion of those involved and does not constitute medical, financial, or legal advice.
* We include links we think you will find useful. If you buy through those links, we may earn a small commission. It’s one way to support our work and to inspire as many people as possible.