October 23rd, 2009

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

I hate confessing to these long-ago memories. But I remember marching against apartheid. It was a time when we students knew what the term meant (though much of the world was still comfortably oblivious) and were convinced that this problem in South Africa had to be fixed.

Then we marched for divestiture, which was necessary to de-fund the unjust system.

(Photo: John Fadler)

When I saw Desmond Tutu writing on behalf of 350.org’s International Day of Climate Action, I got a little chill. Here is a man who’s seen it all; seen what it takes to bring change. He’s seen people persecuted, killed and jailed, and he remembers the ripplings of awareness as the world awoke to the problems in South Africa, and realized that we’d all be better off, or conversely we’d all be morally corrupt, if changes weren’t made.

Are there lessons that we can apply to today, with regard to climate change? Tutu thinks so. In an editorial running in USA Today,  he notes that as the movement to fight climate change goes global, people from Kenya to China to the United States will realize a common goal and they will become united in their efforts.

That unity, writes the Nobel laureate, can force worldwide change.

A big step toward forging a unified movement is taking place this Saturday with hundreds of actions in some 170 countries calling for recognition that the world needs to rollback carbon in the atmosphere to 350 ppm. By focusing the world on this one number — considered a safe level for carbon emissions — the movement, organized by 350.org, hopes to make several nuanced points on this International Day of Climate Action:

• Leaders must act with greater urgency and take strong action at the upcoming Copenhagen Conference to reduce carbon emissions.
• The public at large, and in many varied places, wants climate change addressed.
• Old benchmarks, like the 450 ppm that scientists once ventured might be a “safe” level of carbon pollution, obviously won’t work, given how Earth is responding at lesser levels.
• That aiming low on climate change, acting too slowly or with feeble measures, would be a vote for devastation.

(Chart: 350.org)

It’s a lot to invest in a number, but 350.org organizers, including founder and well-known activist Bill McKibben, believe that the public needs a rallying cry.

Tutu is a big supporter. “Groups will gather in the world’s most iconic places – from Table Mountain in Cape Town to the tops of Himalayan peaks,” he writes. “Across the planet, churches will ring their bells 350 times that day… People in almost all the nations of the earth are involved – it’s the same kind of coalition that helped make the word “apartheid” known around the world.”

Divestiture, in this case of climate change, will be complex, hard-fought and nearly impossible to imagine. A world that operates on clean energy and sustainable principles will require taking a huge U-turn on so many roads, simultaneously.

But first, let’s get the word out.

(Want to participate in International Climate Action Day? Search for actions near you at 350.org.)

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