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350 ppm
Global warming is happening faster than predicted and human activity is responsible.
The most recent science tells us that unless we can reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million, we will cause huge and irreversible damage to the earth.
350 is the number that leading scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. 350 PPM is the number humanity needs to get back to as soon as possible to avoid runaway climate change. It is the red line for human beings, the most important number on the planet.
The planet is in the danger zone because we’ve poured too much carbon into the atmosphere, and we’re starting to see signs of real trouble: melting ice caps, rapidly spreading drought. We need to scramble back as quickly as we can to safety.
Dr. James Hansen, of NASA, the United States’ space agency, was the first to publicly testify before the U.S. Congress, in June of 1988, that global warming was real. He and his colleagues have used both real-world observation, computer simulation, and mountains of data about ancient climates to calculate what constitutes dangerous quantities of carbon in the atmosphere. The Bush Administration has tried to keep Hansen and his team from speaking publicly, but their analysis has been widely praised by other scientists, and by experts like Nobel Prize winner Al Gore. The full text of James Hansen’s paper
about 350 can be found here.
Global warming is caused by releasing “greenhouse” gases into the atmosphere, the most common of which is carbon dioxide. Many of the activities we do every day like turn the lights on, cook food, or heat or cool our homes rely on energy sources like coal and oil that emit carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases. This is a major problem because global warming destabilizes the delicate balance that makes life on this planet possible. Just a few degrees in temperature can and will completely change the world as we know it, and threaten the lives of millions of people around the world.
