by Aarthi A.

Over the past year, we’ve seen massive changes in awareness of climate change – even President Bush’s speech yesterday addressed the burgeoning awareness of the American public. A year ago this week, on April 14th, 2007, 1,400 demonstrations and rallies and events were organized in all 50 states for the Step It Up National Day of Climate Action.

Over the past year, Step It Up activists have mobilized to form important advocacy groups focused on creating effective climate change policy over the next two years. Grassroots organizers across the country formed the first, 1Sky, which is taking the lead in the American fight against climate change, organizing almost 500 Congressional office visits around this issue over the past few months.

NASA climatologist James Hansen, has just issued the most important scientific assessment of global warming in many years, which calls for limiting carbon concentrations in the atmosphere to below 350 parts per million. (You can read the report here.) In fact, Hansen says: “If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm.”

Around this report, a host of environmental organizing rockstars have created 350.org, and international effort dedicated toward:

“Tak[ing] this number, 350, and spread[ing] it all over the world. We want every human, if they know nothing else about global warming, to know that 350 represents safety. We want to use protest and music and art and video and the ‘net to make that number inescapable, ubiquitous. Everywhere. If we do, it will help move the international negotiations in that direction-just the way that our insistence on 80% cuts by 2050 last spring found its way into the platforms of all the Democratic presidential candidates within days of our demonstrations. This time our target is the international community, which is spending the next 18 months negotiating a follow-up to Kyoto. It may be our last real bite at the apple, so those 18 months need to be well-spent.” – Bill McKibben

Definitely a worthy new effort.