Free Republic

COPENHAGEN – As police cracked down on climate protesters, church bells tolled 350 times Sunday to impress on the U.N. global warming conference a number that is gaining a following, but is also awash in contradictions. Conference negotiators, meanwhile, went behind closed doors in talks to pin down an elusive new pact on climate, talks in which the figure 350 looms as a goal for true believers, but one that appears impossible based on progress so far. It refers to 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the highest concentration that some leading scientists say the world...

Campaigners against global warming have drawn on an arsenal of visually startling tactics over the years, from posing nude on a Swiss glacier to scaling smokestacks at coal-fired power plants. On Saturday, they tried something new with the goal of prodding countries to get serious about reaching an international climate accord: a synchronized burst of more than 4,300 demonstrations, from the Himalayas to the Great Barrier Reef, all centered on the number 350.For some prominent climate scientists, that is the upper limit for heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, measured in parts per million. If the gas concentration exceeds that...

Bill McKibben '82 has founded 350.org, a worldwide action group that this weekend (Oct. 23-25) will promote demonstrations on every continent. McKibben was at Harvard's Memorial Church for a 90-minute "climate convocation" sponsored by 17 groups. Author and climate activist Bill McKibben '82 ascended into the pulpit of the Memorial Church at Harvard University on Oct. 18, a stage so grand that legend puts it "10 feet above contradiction." McKibben's message is that the Earth is warming rapidly, that climate change is too late to stop, but that it is not too late to act. Acting means getting humankind, with...