Stern, Bush and why the number 350 needs to be stamped into every mind

After a look at Stern and Bush we come to why 350 is the number we all need to know about...

Photos and action postcard: from 350.org: see more below

Nicholas Stern at last has come out and said what Greens were thinking at the time - ie climate change is worse than he thought. Nicholas Stern is the British economist known for a major report in October 2006 in which he declared that combating climate change would cost less than ignoring it. Even though at the time he noted grave concerns, he now admits he was wrong about how bad the problem is.

He said last week: "We badly underestimated the degree of damages and the risks of climate change. All of the links in the chain are on average worse than we thought a couple of years ago." He went onto say that thawing permafrost is releasing methane, oceans are acidifying faster than expected, and carbon sinks are becoming less effective. He urges nations to come up with a stringent global climate treaty taking food production into account, and reiterated that the world should aim to produce zero-carbon electricity by 2050, saying: "This is about buying down risk. Starting now, that means it requires at least 1 percent of world GDP. That is small relative to a planetary catastrophe."

Meanwhile President George W. Bush took his unambitious views and goals on climate and stuck them into one mediocre speech last week - he called for U.S. emissions to "slow over the next decade, stop by 2025, and begin to reverse thereafter," an aim far short of what other developed countries are suggesting and what experts think is needed.

If Bush had any hopes at all of convincing other countries that he's working to attack climate change, they were dissuaded the day after at the meeting of major economies in Paris, where Germany said the speech was a step backward, South Africa declared the Bush administration "isolated," and an unnamed European official told Reuters, "This is disappointing. But Bush will be leaving office soon. What he says doesn't matter so much any more."

But on a much brighter note as a sign of things changing for the better - the great author, activist, and the mastermind behind the Step It Up marches, Bill McKibben kicks off 350.org - a new international grassroots climate campaign.
The aim is to stamp 350 into the minds of everyone on Earth, and McKibben wants you to help. The number 350 is the parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere that we must aim for if we want to keep the planet relatively safe and sane, according to climate scientist James Hansen and others.