“In the long run, Americans have good reason to be confident in our economic strength. Despite corrections in the marketplace and instances of abuse, democratic [sic] capitalism is the best system ever devised.” - George W. Bush, September 25, 2008

“The fundamentals of the economy are strong.” - John McCain, September 15, 2008

You’ll hear lots of politicians, CEO’s, and media pundits using similar language in the days ahead. The economy is “strong”. capitalism is the “best system possible.” Or, perhaps more bluntly, they’ll say what they really mean: there is no alternative.

Fundamental crises like these, where the government has to step in to prevent the market system from literally collapsing and sending us into a depression, are proof enough for the average onlooker that market capitalism is a deeply flawed and profoundly undemocratic system.

Right-wing politicians like Bush and McCain, who claim to favor “small government”, have been exposed for who they really are. While social programs have been cut over the last four years, our national debt has skyrocketed to nearly  $11 trillion dollars. Small government? Ha! While bipartisan politicians and Wall Street CEO’s rob taxpayers of money to fund an unpopular regional war in the Middle East and bailout criminal corporate robber barons, millions of Americans can’t afford to travel to work, buy food, or pay their rents and mortgage.

While the climate crisis is spiraling out of control, with the north pole becoming an island - detached from all surrounding continents - for the first time in 50,000 years, the Washington-Wall Street racket is spending $3 trillion dollars - and killing millions of people - on a fossil fuel drilling expedition in Iraq.

McCain and Obama’s answer to the crisis? Slightly different programmatic positions, but McCain articulated their commonality best: “Drill Baby, Drill.” The gas prices issue leads to their common (non-)solution: “energy independence”. What’s the term really mean? Read: having a backup plan should imperialist endeavors in the Middle East fail. While leaders like former Vice President Gore are calling for 100% clean energy by 2019, advocating young people utilize civil disobedience to achieve it, Senator Obama - the Democratic Party candidate for President - advocates “energy independence” by 2020. Climate change is a global crisis and should not be turned into sell-out slogans to pick up votes and gain the presidency. The two presidential candidates should grow a spine and take a real stance on the issue. Unfortunately the American people will have to force them to do so.

So why exactly are Bush and McCain bringing out the “there is no alternative” (TINA) argument when both the economy and climate are in deep crisis? Hmmm. I wonder. What we have are two crises that exist, largely due to the chaotic nature of market economics. Costs of production and consumption on humans and the environment aren’t figured into market transactions. The government is forced to use hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money to bailout corporations that have caused the economic spiral towards recession.

So why all the talk about “capitalism being the best system ever devised”? Its simple, because none of these problems would exist in a democratic economy. Go figure.

Even for Americans, constitutionally convinced that there will always be a second act, and a third, and a do-over after that, and, if necessary, a little public repentance and forgiveness and a Brand New Start — even for us, the world looks a little Terminal right now.

It’s not just the economy. We’ve gone through swoons before. It’s that gas at $4 a gallon means we’re running out, at least of the cheap stuff that built our sprawling society. It’s that when we try to turn corn into gas, it sends the price of a loaf of bread shooting upwards and starts food riots on three continents. It’s that everything is so inextricably tied together. It’s that, all of a sudden, those grim Club of Rome types who, way back in the 1970s, went on and on about the “limits to growth” suddenly seem… how best to put it, right.

All of a sudden it isn’t morning in America, it’s dusk on planet Earth.

There’s a number — a new number — that makes this point most powerfully. It may now be the most important number on Earth: 350. As in parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

A few weeks ago, our foremost climatologist, NASA’s Jim Hansen, submitted a paper to Science magazine with several co-authors. The abstract attached to it argued — and I have never read stronger language in a scientific paper — “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.” Hansen cites six irreversible tipping points — massive sea level rise and huge changes in rainfall patterns, among them — that we’ll pass if we don’t get back down to 350 soon; and the first of them, judging by last summer’s insane melt of Arctic ice, may already be behind us.

So it’s a tough diagnosis. It’s like the doctor telling you that your cholesterol is way too high and, if you don’t bring it down right away, you’re going to have a stroke. So you take the pill, you swear off the cheese, and, if you’re lucky, you get back into the safety zone before the coronary. It’s like watching the tachometer edge into the red zone and knowing that you need to take your foot off the gas before you hear that clunk up front.

In this case, though, it’s worse than that because we’re not taking the pill and we are stomping on the gas — hard. Instead of slowing down, we’re pouring on the coal, quite literally. Two weeks ago came the news that atmospheric carbon dioxide had jumped 2.4 parts per million last year — two decades ago, it was going up barely half that fast.

And suddenly, the news arrives that the amount of methane, another potent greenhouse gas, accumulating in the atmosphere, has unexpectedly begun to soar as well. Apparently, we’ve managed to warm the far north enough to start melting huge patches of permafrost and massive quantities of methane trapped beneath it have begun to bubble forth.

And don’t forget: China is building more power plants; India is pioneering the $2,500 car, and Americans are converting to TVs the size of windshields which suck juice ever faster.

Here’s the thing. Hansen didn’t just say that, if we didn’t act, there was trouble coming; or, if we didn’t yet know what was best for us, we’d certainly be better off below 350 ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. His phrase was: “…if we wish to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed.” A planet with billions of people living near those oh-so-floodable coastlines. A planet with ever more vulnerable forests. (A beetle, encouraged by warmer temperatures, has already managed to kill 10 times more trees than in any previous infestation across the northern reaches of Canada this year. This means far more carbon heading for the atmosphere and apparently dooms Canada’s efforts to comply with the Kyoto Protocol, already in doubt because of its decision to start producing oil for the U.S. from Alberta’s tar sands.)

We’re the ones who kicked the warming off; now, the planet is starting to take over the job. Melt all that Arctic ice, for instance, and suddenly the nice white shield that reflected 80% of incoming solar radiation back into space has turned to blue water that absorbs 80% of the sun’s heat. Such feedbacks are beyond history, though not in the sense that Francis Fukuyama had in mind.

And we have, at best, a few years to short-circuit them — to reverse course. Here’s the Indian scientist and economist Rajendra Pachauri, who accepted the Nobel Prize on behalf of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last year (and, by the way, got his job when the Bush administration, at the behest of Exxon Mobil, forced out his predecessor): “If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.”

In the next two or three years, the nations of the world are supposed to be negotiating a successor treaty to the Kyoto Accord. When December 2009 rolls around, heads of state are supposed to converge on Copenhagen to sign a treaty — a treaty that would go into effect at the last plausible moment to heed the most basic and crucial of limits on atmospheric CO2.

If we did everything right, says Hansen, we could see carbon emissions start to fall fairly rapidly and the oceans begin to pull some of that CO2 out of the atmosphere. Before the century was out we might even be on track back to 350. We might stop just short of some of those tipping points, like the Road Runner screeching to a halt at the very edge of the cliff.

More likely, though, we’re the Coyote — because “doing everything right” means that political systems around the world would have to take enormous and painful steps right away. It means no more new coal-fired power plants anywhere, and plans to quickly close the ones already in operation. (Coal-fired power plants operating the way they’re supposed to are, in global warming terms, as dangerous as nuclear plants melting down.) It means making car factories turn out efficient hybrids next year, just the way we made them turn out tanks in six months at the start of World War II. It means making trains an absolute priority and planes a taboo.

It means making every decision wisely because we have so little time and so little money, at least relative to the task at hand. And hardest of all, it means the rich countries of the world sharing resources and technology freely with the poorest ones, so that they can develop dignified lives without burning their cheap coal.

That’s possible — we launched a Marshall Plan once, and we could do it again, this time in relation to carbon. But in a month when the President has, once more, urged us to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, that seems unlikely. In a month when the alluring phrase “gas tax holiday” has danced into our vocabulary, it’s hard to see (though it was encouraging to see that Clinton’s gambit didn’t sway many voters). And if it’s hard to imagine sacrifice here, imagine China, where people produce a quarter as much carbon apiece as we do.

Still, as long as it’s not impossible, we’ve got a duty to try. In fact, it’s about the most obvious duty humans have ever faced.

A few of us have just launched a new campaign, 350.org. Its only goal is to spread this number around the world in the next 18 months, via art and music and ruckuses of all kinds, in the hope that it will push those post-Kyoto negotiations in the direction of reality.

After all, those talks are our last chance; you just can’t do this one light bulb at a time. And if this 350.org campaign is a Hail Mary pass, well, sometimes those passes get caught.

We do have one thing going for us: This new tool, the Web which, at least, allows you to imagine something like a grassroots global effort. If the Internet was built for anything, it was built for sharing this number, for making people understand that “350″ stands for a kind of safety, a kind of possibility, a kind of future.

Hansen’s words were well-chosen: “a planet similar to that on which civilization developed.” People will doubtless survive on a non-350 planet, but those who do will be so preoccupied, coping with the endless unintended consequences of an overheated planet, that civilization may not.

Civilization is what grows up in the margins of leisure and security provided by a workable relationship with the natural world. That margin won’t exist, at least not for long, this side of 350. That’s the limit we face.

Bill McKibben is a scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College and co-founder of 350.org. His most recent book is The Bill McKibben Reader.

Power Vote Pledge

Candidates and Officials,

Our generation needs a brand new vision for our future. We need to lead the world towards a just, clean energy economy that moves beyond dirty energy, creates green jobs for all, and secures our climate. I pledge to vote, hold our leaders accountable through my sustained involvement, and create a Power Shift!

1. GREEN JOBS NOW

Invest in millions of new green jobs, strengthen the American middle class and create new pathways out of poverty for millions more. By retooling our factories, revamping our schools, and rebuilding our communities, we can create a sustainable, just, and prosperous future for all.

2. INVEST IN A CLEAN ENERGY ECONOMY

Unleash American ingenuity and launch a new wave of affordable clean energy technology. We need more federal and private investments in public transit, ultra-efficient vehicles, and renewable energy like wind and solar.

3. CUT GLOBAL WARMING POLLUTION NOW

To ensure our health, prosperity, and security, scientists tell us we must rapidly drive US global warming pollution towards zero. We can and must accomplish this transition to a clean energy future in an equitable and just manner.

4. END OUR DEPENDENCE ON DIRTY ENERGY

Enact an immediate moratorium on new coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear plant construction and infrastructure, while phasing out existing plants and fossil fuel extraction and ensuring a just transition for the workforce and communities

5. RE-ENGAGE AS A LEADER IN THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

Global warming requires a global solution. We must shift the focus of American foreign policy from military intervention to international cooperation and join the world in pursuing peace and international development, thereby offering assistance to vulnerable and impacted communities.

6. TAKE DIRTY MONEY OUT OF POLITICS

It’s time to make government accountable to “We the People.” Put voters first and refuse campaign contributions from dirty energy interests.

A profound video by Annie Leonard: The Story of Stuff. Its a great, accessible way to start a conversation with people about production, consumption, allocation, and environmental sustainability and justice. Check it out! http://www.storyofstuff.com/

A great talk Van Jones gave at the National Conference for Media Reform in 2007. He talks about the politics of togetherness, avoiding defeatism, realizing when the Left is actually winning on issues. He uses superb language and themes that all leftists should take up. He’s a great orator and motivational speaker. Feeling down? Need some inspiration? Check it out!

During the 1960’s, millions of young people became active to change the course of this country’s future. Starting with the struggle for Black freedom, continuing to with the fight to end the War in Vietnam, and pushing forward with the Women’s Movement, the Gay Liberation Movement, and various other progressive social movements, the youth of our country found their voice and got worked tirelessly for social change.

But despite a myriad of problems facing our generation – from the War in Iraq, to the genocide in Darfur, to devastated Gulf Coast and possible economic recession – the youth and student movement remains divided, atomized, and visionless. It isn’t that things aren’t going on – they certainly are – but rather that there is a lack of unifying issues, frameworks and visions under which our generation can feel a common purpose.

From this atomization, excitement and passion around such an issue is surfacing: the climate crisis. After decades of piling evidence, the dialog around global warming is finally coming to an end; the Right can’t cover up the facts any more; the jury ain’t out anymore (hasn’t been for a long time), global warming is the result of human interaction with the environment, and if we want to protect the future, we have to act now. Young people have the power and the passion to hold the government accountable to keeping America safe from impending catastrophe.

So how does global warming relate to the war in Iraq, the genocide in Darfar, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and the possible recession you ask? Well, because the fight for environmental justice has the potential to unite young Americans across countless boundaries. It has the potential to be a historic catalyst.

The war in Iraq, despite the Bush administration’s 7 year campaign to mislead the American people, is slowly being shown nakedly for what it is: an aggressive and illegal war to control Iraqi oil. Our addiction to fossil fuels – something that can be easily changed by zero-emissions vehicles and investing in green jobs and alternative energy sources – is no excuse for squandering human lives (both American and Iraqi) and wasting hundreds of billions of dollars on war. All of this could have been prevented, and can be brought to a halt, if we mobilize to confront the human causes of global warming and transition to green energy sources.

The genocide in Darfar, is about poverty and disputes between third-world militias, tribes, and Sudan’s government over land and resource scarcity. Resource scarcity, especially in Africa, has only been increased by climate irregularity. Those interested in preventing future genocides and fighting poverty in places like Africa, should take on the battle to fight global warming as a key issue in their political work. Progressives should deepen our analysis of issues in Africa. Less money needed for war, provides more money to develop both programs at home for Americans, and programs abroad to fight poverty, disease, hunger, and allow people to build their own futures.

Hurrican Katrina, and other large super-hurricanes, has many climatologists have pointed out, will only increase in severity and frequency as the globe warms. If the globe warms just a few more degrees, large parts of U.S. coastal cities – and coastal cities all around the world – will be under water. (Its kinda hard to study if you’re up to your knees in water!) It rising water isn’t enough to scare my generation, the effects of these super-hurricanes, combined with rising water levels, should. With the water alone, a good portion of New York City will be underwater. Many scientists have predicted that as the globe continues to warm, the Northeastern United States could be introduced to a new phenomenon: hurricanes reaching northern coastal cities.

In the past several years, tropical storms – much less severe than hurricanes (let alone super-hurricanes) – have flooded many Northern cities such as providence. But with rising water levels, a hurricane in the North would have devastating results. Take New York City again. Where New York Harbor means the ocean, the land forms a right angle. If a high waves or a storm surge from a hurricane hit land making a right angle, often the only place they have to go is up. Imagine a surge of 20, 30, or even 40 or more feet approaching Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Eastern New Jersey. Need I go further?

The intersections between climate change and war, economic damage and poverty are enormous, and could provide a catalyzing issue for a growing and unifying progressive youth movement. Will we be able to channel that energy in productive directions? Recent developments among youth organizations and events suggestions yes. In early November of 2007, over 6,000 youth converged on the Nation’s capitol to demand congress and the executive take historic action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and push our nation in a positive direction with “Green Collar Jobs for All” and “Green Pathways Out of Poverty”. The event, called “Power Shift”, brought together students and youth from diverse backgrounds across the nation under a unified demand to take action to stop global warming.

These students educated, built community, took action, lobbied, attended workshops, and listened dozens of speakers including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D – CA), Representative Ed Markley (D – Mass), and Van Jones of the Green for All. Jones gave a historic talk about need for a united, powerful progressive movement to lead our country in a new direction of change. Many youth representatives that weekend testified before Congress for the need for Congress to take action to cut fossil fuel emissions talking about their families, their lives, and the future of our generation.

The youth pledged to elect a “climate president in 2008” and gave notice that any member of Congress who wasn’t working to protect our future would have to look for a new job, as young voters search for more progressive, more climate friendly representatives.

The intersections between global climate destabilization and virtually every progressive issue only increase daily. Let’s seize the opportunity to use it as a tool to unite our movement, and build a popular movement to save our planet and its people! We don’t have the luxury of time. Second place means parts of New York City and Providence, and half of Florida under water. Second place means a billion climate crisis refugees world wide. Second place means water wars and increase ethnic cleansing and exponentially increasing poverty, disease, and famine. Second place means millions of deaths across the world. Second place means, quite literally, a global meltdown.

Wanna Get Involved? Act now:
Student Environmental Action Coalition - http://www.seac.org
Campus Climate Challenge: http://climatechallenge.org/
Energy Action Coalition: http://www.energyaction.net
It’s Getting Hot In Here: Dispatches from the Youth Climate Movement: http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/