Istanbul called to give voice to climate change
Güncelleme Tarihi:
Hürriyet Daily News
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Temmuz 04, 2009 00:00
ISTANBUL - The promoter of the ’350 movement’ to tackle climate change, Bill McKibben, arrives in Istanbul and calls on activists in the city and across Turkey to join forces with a global coordinated effort to highlight the importance being paid by people across the world to climate change. He says Turkey is an important place for this initiative
Awareness about climate change is increasing in Turkey and the time has come for globally coordinated action against global warming, said the author of what many consider to be the first book on the environmental topic.
Writer, researcher and activist Bill McKibben arrived in Istanbul on Wednesday after making stops in London and Stockholm, where he was promoting the "350 movement" campaign. Now he hopes to make Turkey part of the action.
McKibben said the campaign is making great efforts to organize people in China, India and South America, and that Turkey is an important bridge for the initiative. "This is a place that we very much need," he said.
The highlight of the campaign will be an International Day of Climate Action on Oct. 24, when activists will place a huge screen at the United Nations headquarters building in New York to display actions around the world.
Scientists say that 350 parts per million, or ppm, of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the safe limit for humanity, but CO2 levels have already exceeded that figure, rallying activists around the world to try and bring them back down to 350 ppm as soon as possible to avoid runaway climate change.
Authority on climate change
Since writing his book "The End of Nature" in 1989, McKibben has become a major global authority on the issue of climate change. One of the organizers of awareness-raising actions in the United States, he came to Turkey to participate in a meeting of the Küresel Eylem Grubu (Global Action Group).
Taking the stage with Global Action Group member Gökşen Şahin, he said there are terrific activists in Istanbul and emphasized three major points during his speech.
The first one was scientific: "The amount of news about climate change over the last 18 months has increased. So we know that it’s happening," McKibben said. He noted that 20 years ago, when he wrote his book, people thought it would take a lot of time for global warming to affect anything Ğ perhaps not creating major problems until their children grew up Ğ but after the summer of 2007, when the melting of the Arctic accelerated, people started paying more attention.
"The one good thing from the last 18 months is that we have a better scientific understanding," McKibben said, adding that climate change is not an approaching problem, but one that is already present and that world leaders are moving too slowly to address.
Calling on people to take action, the American environmentalist talked about the 350 campaign, under which more than 1,500 actions are planned around the globe to call on world officials to craft a better plan. The United Nations is working on a global climate treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. It is expected to be completed in December at a conference in Copenhagen.
Although McKibben believes the outcome of the Copenhagen conference will be a very weak agreement, he said a grassroots movement is needed to tell the leaders what people need out of it.
"I will be eagerly waiting for Oct. 24 to see what kind of actions will be taken in Istanbul," McKibben said, noting he was happy to see so many young people at the meeting.
Şahin, of those ready to take action, said that people don’t have time to lose and called on Turkish youth to cooperate to save the planet and show that they are determined to take action not only on Oct. 24, but every day. "The negotiation is not between China, the U.S., Japan or the U.N., it is between the chemistry and the physics of the earth," she said.
McKibben met U.S. President Barack Obama last month and told the audience in Turkey, "Obama told me, ’Make me do what you want me to do.’"
Writer, researcher and activist Bill McKibben arrived in Istanbul on Wednesday after making stops in London and Stockholm, where he was promoting the "350 movement" campaign. Now he hopes to make Turkey part of the action.
McKibben said the campaign is making great efforts to organize people in China, India and South America, and that Turkey is an important bridge for the initiative. "This is a place that we very much need," he said.
The highlight of the campaign will be an International Day of Climate Action on Oct. 24, when activists will place a huge screen at the United Nations headquarters building in New York to display actions around the world.
Scientists say that 350 parts per million, or ppm, of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the safe limit for humanity, but CO2 levels have already exceeded that figure, rallying activists around the world to try and bring them back down to 350 ppm as soon as possible to avoid runaway climate change.
Authority on climate change
Since writing his book "The End of Nature" in 1989, McKibben has become a major global authority on the issue of climate change. One of the organizers of awareness-raising actions in the United States, he came to Turkey to participate in a meeting of the Küresel Eylem Grubu (Global Action Group).
Taking the stage with Global Action Group member Gökşen Şahin, he said there are terrific activists in Istanbul and emphasized three major points during his speech.
The first one was scientific: "The amount of news about climate change over the last 18 months has increased. So we know that it’s happening," McKibben said. He noted that 20 years ago, when he wrote his book, people thought it would take a lot of time for global warming to affect anything Ğ perhaps not creating major problems until their children grew up Ğ but after the summer of 2007, when the melting of the Arctic accelerated, people started paying more attention.
"The one good thing from the last 18 months is that we have a better scientific understanding," McKibben said, adding that climate change is not an approaching problem, but one that is already present and that world leaders are moving too slowly to address.
Calling on people to take action, the American environmentalist talked about the 350 campaign, under which more than 1,500 actions are planned around the globe to call on world officials to craft a better plan. The United Nations is working on a global climate treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. It is expected to be completed in December at a conference in Copenhagen.
Although McKibben believes the outcome of the Copenhagen conference will be a very weak agreement, he said a grassroots movement is needed to tell the leaders what people need out of it.
"I will be eagerly waiting for Oct. 24 to see what kind of actions will be taken in Istanbul," McKibben said, noting he was happy to see so many young people at the meeting.
Şahin, of those ready to take action, said that people don’t have time to lose and called on Turkish youth to cooperate to save the planet and show that they are determined to take action not only on Oct. 24, but every day. "The negotiation is not between China, the U.S., Japan or the U.N., it is between the chemistry and the physics of the earth," she said.
McKibben met U.S. President Barack Obama last month and told the audience in Turkey, "Obama told me, ’Make me do what you want me to do.’"