Midd Alum in Action: Kelly Blynn '07
July 15, 2008
Alumni Kelly Blynn '07 writes in about her experiences travels across the country and her current work with climate change organization 350.org.
Last year, I spent the summer, fall, and ultimately through the winter working with other Middlebury grads in New Hampshire and then South Carolina with the Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters (LCV), and other groups to elevate the issue of climate change in the primary election. We organized a five day march across the state in the summer, then a national day of action in the fall targeting Congress and the presidential campaigns called Step It Up, and then a last minute visibility and media blitz with LCV right before the primary.
Shortly after Step It Up ended in November (many thanks to you all that helped out with that, through the pouring rain and cold of the tropical storm hit the east coast that day), I made the big decision to commit to working full steam on this issue with the rest of the Step It Up crew through the end of 2009 , when world leaders will supposedly create the successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol in Copenhagen, Denmark. This decision meant that several of us hopped on a plane to Bali, the site of the 2007 meeting of the UN climate change conference to begin making contacts and laying the groundwork for a global movement around climate change.
After Bali, Jamie Henn and I hopped in a car to move cross country and meet up with May Boeve, Jon Warnow and other friends moving west, eating in great roadside diners, stopping at national parks, and canvassing for Obama along the way. And so in March, after settling into our new homes in San Francisco, we began work full time for 350.org, the newly christened campaign. The number refers to the safe limit for carbon dioxide in our atmosphere - a new scientific reality from the research of James Hansen and several of the top climate scientists from around the globe. Up until now, the scientific community and policy makers have been aiming for 450 and 550 parts per million CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere - levels that scientists now believe ensure drastic effects of global warming. In other words, 350 draws a red line in the sand for what represents a safe climate and future, a common destination for humanity, the important number for everyone to know.
And so that's our simple task - to let people know. Before the creation of the Copenhagen Protocol in 2009, it's our goal to spread the word as far and wide as possible about 350, through art, music, politics, the internet, media, whatever means possible - so as to put pressure on our leaders and politicians to act, before its too late. T
he scientific and political window is open for just a short time for us to do what is necessary. Last week, aft er weeks and weeks of translation, content creation, outreach, and lots of other grunt work, we finally launched our website in 8 languages - quite the feat, let me tell you! Please check out the site when you get a chance, and be sure to watch the animation - it explains the campaign in 90 seconds, no words - and it's really fun. Sign up, and get started helping to spread the word!
