Bill McKibben’s Step It Up 2007 campaign (read his dispatches) is trying to rally a bunch of simultaneous protests pushing a single goal: reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by 80% by 2050.
This approach — picking a goal rather than supporting specific legislation — is known as bright lining, and it’s something you’re going to hear a lot more about on this site fairly soon (stay tuned!). I’m a big fan. What if we could get every green group to agree on a bright line?What if we could get a social and political consensus on a target? Then policymakers could hash out whose strategy is best for reaching the target. Why, ass would be kicked, I tell you!
Along the same lines (via Worldchanging), Environment Northeast recently came out with a Climate Change Roadmap for New England and Eastern Canada, aimed at reducing that region’s emissions 75% by 2050. Here are its nine main planks:
- Invest in Energy Efficiency Resources
- Increase Energy Efficiency of Buildings
- Increase Energy Efficiency of Appliances
- Reduce Emissions from Large Stationary Sources
- Commercialize and Deploy No-Carbon and Low-Carbon Energy Sources
- Transition to No-Carbon or Low-Carbon Transportation Fuels
- Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Light-Duty Vehicles
- Reduce Emissions from Heavy-Duty Vehicles
- Sequester Carbon in Terrestrial Sinks
- Capture and Store of Carbon Dioxide from Energy and Industrial Sources
Sounds good to me. What do you think?
