350 PPM or Bust

There was a green exposition at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston called Down 2 Earth this weekend.  I went because I wanted to see Bill McKibben and what he's up to since he organized Step It Up.  Now he's starting a new organization called 350.org, the purpose of which is to get out the idea that we need to limit our CO2 to 350 parts per million, 350 ppm, into the public consciousness.  This is going to be difficult as we are already at 385 ppm today.

McKibben is following the lead of Dr James Hansen of NASA whose most recent research indicates the 350 ppm is our climate change redline.  Over 350 ppm and we lose the ice cover on the Arctic and start positive feedback loops that result in atmospheric warming such as we probably haven't seen as a species.  You can read the paper at http://www.columbia.edu/... [pdf alert]

Like Step It Up which triggered 1400 local protests in 2007, McKibben is hoping that the linked imaginations of all those concerned will trigger a mass movement.  I hope he's right.

I sent McKibben my ideas about using farmers' markets as a platform for energy education and WWII posters as a spur to energy efficiency.  You can read about the farmers' market idea at http://solarray.blogspot.com/... and see my favorite WWII posters at
http://www.dailykos.com/... and http://www.dailykos.com/...
I also gave him one of my new Solar IS Civil Defense stickers.  I hope it helps.

At the exposition, I got to drink sustainably made vodka and wines, bumped into some old acquaintances one of whom led me to a panel session in which I got to connect with the inventors of a combined solar and wind system that I'd read about called GLOW, a PV and piezo-electric system which is modeled on ivy growing on a wall.  Neat stuff.

At the Hynes that day, upstairs from the green expo, there was a major home foreclosure auction.  Signs of the times, folks, signs of the times.