Scene 1: Davos environment question
Will the environment lose to the economy in 2009?
Scene 2: Environment is losing
It’s been losing for decades. According to this survey, most expect the status quo.
Scene 3: Winning together
But if we want change bad enough, we have to make it. That’s why I made this video. To help people create solutions where the planet wins, the economy wins, and people win.
Scene 4: World GDP
Until last year, the world economy looked good.
Scene 5: WWF Living Planet Index
But Earth’s biodiversity dropped 30% in 35 years.
Scene 6: Humanity’s Ecological Footprint
The purple at the bottom is humanity’s carbon footprint. Carbon alone puts us past Nature’s capacity to regenerate.
Scene 7: Atmospheric CO2
Here’s the main trend behind global warming and climate change. Rising CO2. This mother of all environmental problems is accelerating.
Scene 8: Failing to Stabilize CO2
When did atmospheric CO2 rise the fastest? Since the Kyoto Protocol was signed.
We have climate treaties to stabilize CO2 in the atmosphere. But the treaties have no atmospheric targets. And as for atmospheric results, CO2 has never been further from stabilization.
Scene 9: Our Climate Treaties
Our climate treaties could be great, but they’re letting us down. It’s time we put an atmospheric target at the centre of our climate and economic policies. It’s time to get talking about the most important number on the planet.....
{voice of the first angel} ...the most important number on Earth...
(voice of the second angel) ...350...
Scene 10: 350
Right. 350. Science says 350 parts per million is the upper limit for safe concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere. This is the atmospheric target humanity needs to aim for.
Scene 11: 350 Validators
In the past eight months, people and even countries have started to promote 350 as a climate target....a hopeful trend that anyone can support simply by adding their voice.
Scene 12: CO2 Reality
Atmospheric CO2 surpassed 385 last month. We left 350 behind in 1988.
Scene 13: Crazy Impacts
Arctic sea ice will soon be gone in the summers. It could happen as early as five to 13 years from now. That’s just one crazy example of the impacts that are happening on this planet.
Scene 14: Gas Station
You’re looking the problem straight in the eye. It’s not cars, or light bulbs, furnaces or air conditioners. It’s not coal miners, oil executives or the tar sands. The main problem is what I’m doing right now...freely and lawfully...I’m using fossil fuels for energy.
Scene 15: I want to stop using fossil fuels
I want to stop using fossil fuels. I’m trying to figure out how. It will be easier and faster when more people want the same thing.
Scene 16: Getting Back to 350
We’ve got to get CO2 back to 350. What’s that going to take? Two giant steps.
Scene 17: Step 1
First, CO2 needs to stop going up. To do that, we need an alternative energy shift so massive that global CO2 emissions get cut in half.
Scene 18: Step 2
Second, we need to get from “Peak CO2” back to 350. We have to rewire the world economy for alternative energy. Then CO2 emissions can become history. And, we need ways of pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere.
Scene 19: Solve several problems at once
Rising CO2 isn’t our only problem. We need to solve more than one thing at a time. When our economies need cash flow, we can use economic stimulus to build the post carbon future.
Scene 20: Drama Segment at Pharmacy
Patient: Hands 3 prescriptions to pharmacist.
Pharmacist: Hi, can I help you?
Patient: I sure hope so.
Pharmacist: “economic meltdown!” “peak oil?” “global warming!” “Your dosage is up. ”
Patient: (Grimacing) I know. And I can’t get my CO2 levels down, and my methane’s really starting to bubble.
Pharmacist: I’ll get the solar panels.
Scene 21: Imagine what can happen
The reality is grim, but 350 offers reason for hope. We can’t predict how things will play out, but it’s exciting to imagine what can.
Scene 22: Imagine 350 in Copenhagen
Imagine countries rallying around 350 at the Copenhagen climate conference.
Scene 23: Imagine the number of the year
Imagine the news story of the year, about a number that makes life safer for people around the world.
Scene 24: Getting to 350 faster than imagined
This is a story with legs. With 350 as a shared target, people of all backgrounds can arrive at the same destination, faster than anyone imagined.
Scene 25: Gift of Science
In 2008, science gave the world a gift.
Scene 26: Universal relevance of 350
In 2009, leaders in Davos can be among the first to acknowledge this gift from science...by folding 350 into discussions on matters of ethics, politics, society, environment and the economy. This target is universally relevant because the need to preserve climate stability touches every issue, every corner of the planet, every life. In Davos and beyond, please hear and think and say the number, this one beautiful number....
Scene 27: So easy. So important
Five kids say 350 |
