Vermont Will Mark Day Of Action On Climate Change

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(Host) This weekend marks an international day of action designed to raise awareness on climate change.

On the eve of the event, one of the country’s leading environmental activists came to Vermont with a message of both hope and warning.

VPR’s John Dillon reports:

(Dillon) Larry Schweiger heads the National Wildlife Federation, a group with 4 million members and dozens of affiliate organizations around the country.

Schweiger has just published a book called Last Chance, Preserving Life on Earth. It’s a provocative – perhaps depressing – title. The book warns that humans have little time left to halt the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Yet Schweiger is surprisingly upbeat for a person who lobbies Capitol Hill on climate change issues.

(Schweiger) "We’re starting to see some real breakthroughs in the Senate. Senator Lindsey Graham who is one of the most conservative Republicans from South Carolina has teamed up with Senator John Kerry from Massachusetts and the two of them are now forging a bill that addresses the mainstream of both parties. And I think they’re going to have a bill, frankly, that’s going to meet the test of 60 votes in the Senate."

(Dillon) The Senate bill would have to be reconciled with a House version passed last summer.

Both pieces of legislation encourage renewable energy, beef up energy efficiency programs, and include a cap and trade system aimed at limiting the amount of greenhouse gases.

Schweiger says the United States must take the lead to limit carbon dioxide emissions. He says climate change is affecting ecosystems on a global scale. One example is the increasing acidity of the oceans caused as carbon dioxide reacts with water.

(Schweiger)  "So we’ve increased the acidity of the ocean by about 30 percent, and that interferes with the formation of phytoplankton and it interferes with the formation of shellfish and of bonefish. So essentially everything in the ocean that uses calcium is already starting to show signs that it’s having difficulty up-taking calcium in the way it historically has done."

(Dillon) This weekend’s international day of action on climate change is a global event being organized by Vermont author and activist Bill McKibben. He’s launched an organization called 350-dot-org.

The number refers to a measurement of CO2 in the atmosphere that has to be reached if climate change is to be slowed down.

The CO2 concentrations are now around 390 parts per million. Schweiger says that level has already led to dramatic planetary change.

(Schweiger) "I think Bill McKibben is building off some of the science that has been published that essentially says we’ve gone beyond the tipping point. And we’re seeing evidence of that. There’s a very important study from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks by Dr. Katie Walters and others. And that study shows that we’re now leaking methane out of the tundra at five times the rate that we predicted would be leaking."

(Dillon) But Schweiger remains optimistic that the U-S – and the world – will make progress. He says climate change is not a Democratic or Republican issue, and that the political momentum is building for legislation to pass late this year, or early next year.

For VPR News, I’m John Dillon in Montpelier.

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