1. gregladen
  2. Dear [Elected Official] Please Note the 400 ppm benchmark!

Dear [Elected Official] Please Note the 400 ppm benchmark!

By gregladen on May 11, 2013.

Here's a template for a letter I hope you will consider sending/emailing to all of your elected representatives at the municipal, state, and federal levels, if you are in the US. Thanks

Dear [elected official]

I am writing to ask you to join the very small but hopefully growing number of elected representatives and executives in noting the important news this week regarding the human contribution to the amount of atmospheric CO2. This week the landmark value of 400 ppm was reached, which is a significant amount more than the pre-industrial baseline level of about 280 ppm. As an elected official, it seems appropriate for you to make a public note using any of your usual outlets that this important event has occurred, in order to bring more focus to the national and regional discussion of climate change.

Here is a link to the NOAA web site giving the details:

http://researchmatters.noaa.gov/news/Pages/CarbonDioxideatMaunaLoareach…

Thank you very much,

[your name here]

Tags
Climate Change
Global Warming

More like this

Is 350 the right target for atmospheric CO2?
For those who really grok the precautionary principle, aiming for a lower, and therefore inherently safer, maximum atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentration is the logical choice. Civilization arose over the last 10,000 years in a world in which CO2 represented just 280 of every million atoms we and…
Can geoengineering reverse "irreversible" climate change?
So a fair degree of warming is inevitable, eh? That's the conclusion of a PNAS paper making the rounds this week. (I wrote about it yesterday.) But just how "irreversible" are the coming changes? As Arthur C. Clarke said, "When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong." The…
Is the Earth even more sensitive to CO2 levels than we thought?
One of the more common arguments from skeptics of anthropogenic climate change is that the Earth has experienced periods during which atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were much much higher than they are today -- as much as 10 times higher. Why worry about a mere 30% increase over pre-industrial…
The Glaciers Will Melt, The Sea Will Rise Up
Sea levels are going to rise The amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere directly and indirectly determines the sea level. The more CO2 the higher the sea level. The details matter, the mechanism is complex, and as CO2 levels change, it takes an unknown amount of time for the sea level…

Greg, thank you for providing the NOAA link. Yesterday, The Guardian blogger George Monbiot characterized 400 ppm of atmospheric CO2 as a monumental way station on [our doomed civilization's] "road of idiocy." A road he calls "the Via Dolorosa of environmental destruction" – which strikes me as an interesting metaphorical use of powerful Christian imagery:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2013/may/10/carbon-…
Thanks again,
Joe M.

By Joseph A. Marcus (not verified) on 11 May 2013 #permalink

"Benchmark" seems lika s strange choice of word. Do you mean "landmark", or "milestone"?

By Lars Karlsson (not verified) on 12 May 2013 #permalink

A benchmark is a reference point. We've been using the 400 ppm reference point for years. It is a perfectly good word. But for some reason a few people have complained to me about this word choice. I think maybe there are other aspects of this story that are more important, don't you think?