As church bells rang—350 times to anyone counting—a crowd of more than 80 people in raincoats and umbrellas gathered on the Harvard Common on Oct. 24, joining a worldwide call to action for climate protection. The event, organized by Harvard Local, was one of 5,200 similar events in 181 countries.
The number 350, representing the amount in parts per million of carbon dioxide (CO2 ) in the atmosphere, has become a rallying cry for people who are concerned that climate change will bring grave consequences. According to some leading climate scientists, 350 ppm is the upper limit the Earth’s atmosphere can sustain over time without resulting in runaway global warming and severe climate change. As measured by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency’s climate monitoring station at Mauna Loa in Hawaii, the current concentration fluctuates, but is now around 389 ppm, with an annual increase of 2 ppm.
The Oct. 24 International Day of Climate Action was organized by environmental writer and climate activist Bill McKibben and a small group of supporters. McKibben became alarmed after reading a 2008 NASA paper from a research team headed by American climate scientist James Hansen, which analyzed both current climate observations and emerging paleo-climatic data and concluded that with concentrations of CO2 above 350 ppm, Earth’s atmosphere could not support “a planet similar to the one on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted.”
Arguing that the world could not react fast enough “one light bulb at a time,” McKibben used the 350 ppm data point as something people everywhere could understand, unite around, and use to pressure world leaders into taking strong climate protection action at the upcoming Copenhagen international climate treaty talks in December.
People at the Harvard event mingled on a grassy slope on the Common near a large “350” spelled out in apples by Oak Hill Road resident Eric Broadbent and his son, Bromfield sophomore Scott Broadbent, with help from friends. The apples were donated by Carlson Orchards and Mike and Joan Mintz. Many participants came with homemade signs or umbrellas and raincoats displaying the number 350. A photograph of the gathering was sent to www.350.org, where it was added to the thousands of photographic images from all over the world that were streamed across a giant display screen in New York City’s Times Square, the scene of that city’s 350 rally.
Rev. Wendy Bell, minister at the Harvard Unitarian Universalist Church, and Pastor Greg Schmidt, minister at the Congregational Church of Harvard, advocated ringing the bells at the Harvard gathering, in keeping with a tradition where extended ringing has accompanied a significant alarm or a major occasion like the end of World War II. According to Schmidt, the Congregational Church bell hadn’t rung continuously since the bicentennial in 1976.
Before concluding the event, Rev. Bell repeated the biblical story of Noah, who took 52 years to build the ark with oak planks from acorns he had planted 150 years before, underscoring the long haul ahead to reduce carbon emission through conservation and by finding replacements for coal, oil, and natural gas.
After the Harvard event, many of the participants joined people from 39 other towns at the Regional Energy Revolution Rally at the Minuteman Park in Concord.
More than 80 people gathered in the rain on Oct. 24 on the town Common for a group photo as part of more than 5,000 events worldwide coordinated by 350.org to urge leaders to take quick and decisive action on global warming. The rally was organized by Harvard Local and was part of the first global campaign ever organized around a scientific data point: 350 parts per million of CO2 as the safe upper limit for the atmosphere. (Photo by Sue Fitterman)
