The Dirt

Bill McKibben, author and environmental activist, gave a speech at Greenbuild on the moral implications of climate change.

McKibben explained that the US, with 4 percent of the world’s population, is creating 25 percent of the world’s carbon output. If, as a result of climate change, the shore line of Bangladesh were to rise four feet, Americans would be accountable for one foot of that rise.

His new campaign, 350.org, focuses on creating a worldwide movement for bringing carbon levels back down to 350 parts per million (ppm), the level which climate scientists have pointed to as the edge of safe carbon levels in the atmosphere. McKibben explained that current levels are around 387 ppm and increase by about 1-2 ppm per year. He argues that this small increase over safe levels has kick-started a natural process of climate change, which has already had far-reaching consequences, including melting ice sheets in the Arctic Ocean and upwards of 30 percent increases in hurricane power and frequency along parts of the east coast of the U.S.

McKibben pointed to a statement from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which argued that dramatic change needed to happen by 2012 if the world is going to mount any serious effort to interrupt the “negative feedback loop” that has been initiated. To achieve this, “coal would have to be left in the ground.” By 2030, the world would have to stop burning coal, and developed countries would need to stop sooner. A shift as large as the move from an agricultural economy to the industrial economy is needed to stop the negative effects of climate change.

McKibben outlined a few ways Americans can help mitigate the effects of climate change:

• Americans needs to move closer together. Americans have been building larger homes, farther apart from each other. Driving around running errands, and going to work creates carbon emissions. The current housing crisis, houses in high-density urban areas are losing their value less quickly than those in suburbs farther away from cities. Markets are valuing high-density areas as more valuable.
• The cost of fossil fuels needs to reflect the damage they do to the environment. A global and U.S. national cap on carbon emissions and a national cap and trade system are needed so that the market can begin to associate costs with carbon emissions. McKibben argues for a rebate system for taxpayers, which would take funds earned by the government by issuing carbon credits and return them to taxpayers to help off-set any increase in energy prices. He noted that the Obama transition team seems to be moving in this direction.
• Participate in www.350.org. This new campaign focuses on building worldwide awareness of the need for returning carbon levels in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million. 350.org aims to hold a worldwide set of rallies a few weeks before the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) final negotiations for a new protocol to replace Kyoto. Negotiators meet in Copenhagen in December 2009.

McKibben said the results of his 2007 “Step It Up” campaign were 1,400 rallies in 50 states and revisions to the Obama and Clinton candidate platforms on climate change, with a move towards the more difficult targets – 80 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2050.

Find out about the 2008 event as well as Greenbuild 2009 in Phoenix.

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