UPDATE: Human "350" at Sen. Boxer's SFC office on Saturday, June 7




















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Suggested caption:  Members and supporters of 350.org form the number 350 with their bodies outside of Senator Barbara Boxer's office in downtown San Francisco, on Saturday morning, June 7, 2008. The number 350 represents the maximum safe level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere--350 parts per million--over which NASA scientist,James Hansen and others now say huge and irreversible damage to the climate will occur. The level today stands at 387 ppm, the highest in 650,000 years; it is headed over 500 ppm unless humans reduce our emissions 80% by 2050. Bill McKibben of 350.org and the head of Greenpeace USA, John Passacantando, released a letter to Senator Boxer encouraging her to show strong leadership, and promising to galvanize the climate movement across the United States around a bill that meets that challenge.

For more information: Please see press release and full text of letter below, or call Peter Kelley at 301-887-1060.


350.org
Greenpeace USA

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                         Contacts:  May Boeve, 350.org, 707-815-0054
Friday, June 6, 2008                                                  Mike Crocker, Greenpeace USA, 202-319-2471
                                                              
Letter to Sen. Boxer from world-leading activist Bill McKibben and head of Greenpeace USA
says stronger global warming bill is needed than the one which failed today in the U.S. Senate

350.org to organize “human 350” outside Boxer’s office tomorrow in San Francisco

A  letter to Sen. Barbara Boxer by leading author and activist Bill McKibben and cosigned by the leader of Greenpeace USA says that the climate bill which failed this week in the U.S. Senate would have come nowhere close to doing what scientists say is needed to halt global warming and stabilize carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at a safe level of 350 parts per million.

See full text of letter

350.org, an international campaign to keep the climate livable, will lead a demonstration Saturday, June 7 outside Boxer’s office in San Francisco, in which people will arrange themselves to form a giant "350."

Released June 6 to the media, the joint letter says that debate over the Lieberman-Warner bill got "badly off-track" and "left the legislation grotesquely riddled with loopholes and with gifts to the fossil fuel industry." Also signing the letter with McKibben is John Passacantando, Executive Director of Greenpeace USA. 

"In the time between the original writing of the legislation and its eventual demise, sea ice in the Arctic melted so dramatically that scientists pronounced themselves ‘shaken.’ But the bill remained too weak,"  their letter says.

The letter promises they will help lead a movement to support Boxer if next year’s bill measures up to the science: "A bill that simply ‘gets something done’ isn't actually going to get anything accomplished. Only legislation that meets the real challenge will do the trick. Introduce it, and fight for it, and we will do our best to galvanize the climate movement across America to back you up."

Participants in the June 7 350.org demonstration will meet in front of Pier 33, on the Embarcadero, at 11 am Saturday, and proceed to 1700 Montgomery Street, location of the city office of Sen. Boxer, who led debate on a "carbon cap-and-trade" bill this week in the U.S. Senate. That bill was declared dead June 6 after proponents failed to get the support of 60 senators to cut off debate and bring it to a vote.

McKibben, the award-winning author turned grassroots movement leader, has called 350 "the red line for human beings" because "the most recent science tells us that unless we can reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million, we will cause huge and irreversible damage to the earth."

He and others organized 350.org as a successor to last year’s "Step It Up" campaign, saying, "Everyone on earth, from the smallest village to the cushiest corner office, needs to know what 350 means. The movement to spread that number needs to be beautiful, creative, and unstoppable." Photographs of the campaign’s previous work may be seen at http://www.flickr.com/photos/350org/.

Today the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 387 parts per million, and is projected to go much higher this century without a worldwide cut in emissions and conversion to clean energy.

"Somewhere during the process of bringing this bill to the Senate floor, Congress lost sight of the fact that we’re trying to stop what scientists are telling us is a threat to everyone on earth—runaway global warming," said May Boeve, Co-Coordinator of 350.org. "Congress needs to do what the science demands."

For more information, please see www.350.org, where the campaign will launch a dramatic new website this coming Monday, June 9.

FULL TEXT OF LETTER

Friday, June 6, 2008

Dear Senator Boxer:

Thanks in no small measure to your efforts, the U.S. Senate has just finished the first serious debate in its history on climate change. We're grateful you did the work to help bring the subject to the floor.

Now that the Lieberman-Warner bill has failed, it's time for all of us to understand how badly off-track the debate managed to go. We need your help to make it work much better a year from now, when, under a new president, there's a real chance for action.

In the attempt to “get something done,” your committee managed to lose track of the central points of the debate:

1) That the world's climate is veering out of control, and hence requires immediate and profound action. In the time between the original writing of the legislation and its eventual demise, sea ice in the Arctic melted so dramatically that scientists pronounced themselves “shaken.” But the bill remained too weak.

2) Dealing with a crisis of this magnitude will require breakthrough political leadership--not the kind of backroom dealing that left the legislation grotesquely riddled with loopholes and with gifts to the fossil fuel industry. This is not the time for massive corporate giveaways--that money is needed to help solve the engineering problems we face, and to protect middle-class Americans from the price rises that will accompany any working cap.

We need the debate, and the action, to respond to the science. James Hansen, the NASA climatologist, has published data showing unequivocally that the world is in danger as long as atmopsheric carbon concentrations remain above 350 ppm. To start down the track toward meeting that difficult target, we need 25 percent reductions in our carbon emissions by 2020, and 80 percent by mid-century.

If that's going to happen, you'll need to show even stronger leadership. A bill that simply “gets something done” isn't actually going to get anything accomplished. Only legislation that meets the real challenge will do the trick. Introduce it, and fight for it, and we will do our best to galvanize the climate movement across America to back you up.

Sincerely,

Bill McKibben
350.org 

John Passacantando
Greenpeace USA

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350.org supporters on the way to Sen. Boxer's office to seek a stronger global warming bill, June 7, 2008.