350, 450, 550 – What’s in a number?

Today, I joined the Brighter Planet’s 350 Challenge.You can see the badge on the left column over here.

When a blogger simply signs up, Brighter Planet will offset 350 pounds of Carbon.

So, I signed up, and without spending a dime, I was able to have someone offset 350 pounds of Carbon on my behalf. What does all this mean anyway?

Offsetting Carbon

Carbon offsetting is a controversial mechanism by which organizations small and large, governments and even individuals can “buy” and/or “trade” offsets. Let us say an organization is sensitive to it’s impact on the Earth. Let us say that the transportation of raw materials from point A to point B is one of the organization’s activities that causes significant negative impact on the environment.

The organization can purchase carbon offsets to, er, offset their impact on the environment. Similarly an individual can offset carbon when they travel, say to the Vancouver Olympics because Carbon dioxide is emitted by all the cabs, flights and hotel stays.

Eventually, regulation will ever so gently nudge organizations to offset carbon to use carbon offsets as a mechanism to pay for the pollution they cause.

Where do all the offsets go?

Okay, so we pay for our environmental sins. Where does all that money go? Well, carbon offsets get used for projects on energy efficiency, renewable energy plants and projects, projects that reduce harmful chemicals from being emitted, etc. This makes perfect sense because these are exactly the kind of projects that will eventually offset the carbon/carbon dioxide emitted from our inefficient activities.

Okay – how about the original question – what does 350,450 or 550 mean?

They represent a measure the amount of Carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere – in terms of PPM or parts per million.

That is, given a million units of air (however you like to measure), the amount of Carbon dioxide that is present.

At the rate at which we are polluting the atmosphere today there are about 390PPM of CO2 out there in the atmosphere on an average. The rate of climb is about 2PPM per year.

So, are we safe?

No, at least not according to Jim Hansen and his team of scientists from NASA. According to their findings (as reported by Bill McKibben’s blog on Treehugger), at above 350PPM, Earth is permanently altered and represents a vast change from several hundreds of centuries. Apparently up until two hundred years ago or so, our atmosphere had 275PPM of CO2 or so. Then we started burning coal. Later came plastics and mass transportation and all of the other things science and technology have wrought us – along with melting icecaps and unabated pollution.

So, what are 450 and 550 all about?

This was the crux of the “Copenhagen” meeting – the latest attempt to politically solve the problem of pollution was so focused on scientists demanding nations to pledge actions that would bring the amount of Carbon dioxide down to below 350PPM in the atmosphere. This of course did not happen, but will remain the goal for many environmental activists when they push politicians toward lesser emissions.

However, nothing in life and politics is as simple. Two years ago, no one knew how to quantify our effect on Earth. However, once we did, all kinds of “experts”, “lobbyists” and “consultants” kept popping up (the Republicans were already here, so…). And now we have a war over deciding exactly what is a safe limit.

Given that the average increase of CO2 increase in the atmosphere is about 2PPM, a number at the outset that seems innocently low,it would appear 350 just involves actively dialing back our emissions by about 2 – 4 or more PPM per year, and lo, in a matter of 20 years or so, we are all in the black (or green, as in this case).

Except, 2PPM is not low, and represents a significant sacrifice that has to be made at the global levels. Enter bigotry and selfishness combined with the effervescent lack of intelligence that gifts itself automatically to politicians everywhere. Suddenly we have the following list of enemies to a global accord – developed nations, developing nations, BRIC, the US, China, UK….you get the drift, everyone is blaming everyone.

So, as a compromise some would have us limit the CO2 levels at 450 or 550, rather than the 350 demanded by scientists. If you are pricking your ears and not believing what you are reading and interpreting, you are not alone. Within 200 years or so, we went from 275PPM to 390PPM and our ice caps are melting. So what kind of sense does 450 or 550 make?

And in that muddle, the reality and urgency of global warming and permanent climate change has been lost at least for now. This is why we need to keep the issue active and ensure that large policy changes are effected.

What can you do about 350 till then?

The one thing to do is call your representative. The other thing is be aware and create awareness. And may be one day, we can just offset enough carbon to sustain life – and that is why some numbers, especially ones like 350 are important.

References:

1. http://350.brighterplanet.com/

2. http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/10/the-science-of-350-the-most-important-number.php

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