Very sad news from Politico:
Environmental group 350.org, which spearheaded the movement to block the Keystone XL oil pipeline, will “temporarily suspend programming” in the U.S. and other countries amid funding woes, according to a letter obtained by POLITICO.
The move comes as environmental groups have struggled to find their footing and raise money under President Donald Trump, whose threats to investigate left-leaning organizations and rapid-fire dismantling of environmental rules have hamstrung green groups.
The letter to outside organizations from Executive Director Anne Jellema said 350.org had suffered a 25 percent drop in income for its 2025 and 2026 fiscal years, compelling it to halt operations. The group will keep three U.S. staff members in hopes of reviving operations in the future.
“In making these very tough choices, we considered a range of factors, including the political context, the relative need for 350’s work based on the strength of other actors in the ecosystem, the presence or absence of an enabling environment for civil society, and the ability to resource the work needed,” the letter said.
Climate change has never been more serious, and our leaders have never been more unserious about controlling it. It’s a disturbing time to see a group advocating for a better future be forced to cut back.
This is concerning. Bill McKibbens asked Dr. James Hansen what a safe level of CO2 in the air was. He had been thinking 400 ppm. But Hansen’s research had found that 350 ppm was a better upper bounds to shoot to return to. Thus the name is 350.org, not 400.org.
The CO2 concentration increased the most last year than ever before in human history, to 426 ppm (https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/). Why is it still going up? The IPCC says we’ll fail to achieve science based targets for a relatively safe climate future unless we put a strong global carbon price on fossil fuel production.
The US is now the only developed country without a carbon price. The growing US carbon price gap between the prices of our trading partners, and the even higher price required for a safe future, is a threat to our health, the economy, and life on Earth: carboncashback.org/carbon-price-gap.
Students can help create the political will for the most powerful, equitable, and far-reaching climate policy, a steadily rising, cash-back carbon fee on fossil fuel production with a CBAM, at cfdmovement.org. And we can all send our best wishes and support to 350.org, an organization that reminds us in it’s name where we must return to.