After hearing Bill McKibben speak, I left feeling rather unsettled. I was quite impressed with his knowledge of the issue---the fact that he could recite such specific scientific details from memory clearly shows that he knows his stuff. And he made several insightful points, particularly when he stressed that individual efforts would not add up to enough, that we need to make much more significant changes in order to meet the coming energy change date of 2012; I'd never heard anyone take this approach before.But his proposed solutions, particularly his "350" campaign, seemed rather ineffective to me. I think McKibben's stress on the need to return to an atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration of 350 ppm was quite valid. In article written by Stephen Leahy, Jackie Savitz, the senior campaign director for Oceana's Pollution Campaigns (Oceana is an international ocean conservation group) also emphasized the need to return to this level in order to prevent the loss of coral species and that"We need to stop using fossil fuels period. Carbon that's in the ground now should stay there." And McKibben and Savitz are not the only people who support this effort, Leahy mentions that there are many scientists who share the same goal.
So I don't disagree with McKibben's stress on the need to return to 350ppm, as other scientists deem this necessary, but it's his method of solving this problem that seemed rather ineffective to me. McKibben said that if nothing else, he wanted his listeners to remember the number "350." And the way he described his "350" campaign, it sounded as if he intended to simply brand the number "350" into people's minds. This "branding" doesn't seem like an effective solution to me. Isn't it more important that people remember the meaning behind the number instead of the number itself? What do you think: is this number branding an effective solution???
3 comments:
I think that the point of the 350 campaign is just to have a simple idea that could get stuck in peoples head. I think that it is a good first step towards getting people to understand what we are facing.
Another thing that he talked about though is raising the price of oil to the point that it would be so expensive that people would be forced to switch to alternative fuels. While this would probably help in the long run, I think it would be devastating in the short-term. If there is not a viable solution that is readily available, raising oil prices will just make it hard on people who rely on automobiles for transportation.
As the environmentalist Bill Mckibben said, we have underestimated how the physical features of the earth work. The problem is not waste, global warming, and harmful gases like carbon dioxide,carbon monoxide, methane etc, but the way we are thinking. All of the above are just the symptoms; all are caused by people’s nonsensical behavior.
Well, I will personally agree with Mr. Mckibben saying that only activated people working together will manage to save the world. Harmony between people and the nature is what is needed to be found.
Fortunately, a clean energy revolution is sweeping across the country – we have the tools to put the Earth back in balance and we can do it today.
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