350.org

ddp19@duke.edu — Thu, 12 Apr 2018 00:18:07 +0000

Description:

350.org organizes mass amounts of people to act against new coal, oil, and gas projects. With a network that extends to 188 countries, 350.org has no shortage of citizens committed to looking for clean energy solutions that will halt the heating of the planet. The organization derives it's name from what is typically regarded as the upper limit of what the earth can handle: 350 parts per million (ppm) of carbon in the atmosphere. Thus, it's three primary goals revolve around carbon: keep it in the ground, build an equitable zero-carbon economy, and pressure the government into limiting emissions. To accomplish these goals, it pushes mass collaboration in the name of climate justice, participating in dozens of marches and movements annually.

Goals:

As detailed in this section of its website, the organization's goals are three-fold:

1. Keep carbon in the ground.

2. Help build a new, more equitable zero-carbon economy.

3. Pressure governments into limiting emissions.

They aim to accomplish these three noble pursuits with grassroots organizing, social media campaigns, and mass public actions that target the fossil fuel industry.

Structure:

350.org consists of hundreds of staff members and thousands of volunteers from around the world, as detailed by their team page. They prepend words like "Chief" and "Lead" to certain titles suggesting some sort of hierarchical structure to decision making. The top-most level is an extremely diverse 9-person board which reflects the diversity of their entire team. Most of their impact, though, comes from the thousands of volunteers that demonstrate on a global scale.

Genealogy:

In 2008, environmentalist and writer Bill McKibben and a small group of students from Middlebury College set out with one goal: to reduce the parts per million (ppm) of carbon in the atmosphere. The group derived its name from a paper by NASA climate scientist James Hansen that found 350 ppm of carbon to be the upper limit, or tipping point, in the atmosphere. Just one year previously in 2007, McKibben led his "Step It Up" campaign that involved demonstrations in 1,400 cities across the US. After this, McKibben and the students set out to shift that mission from national to global.

The group gained a significant amount of traction in 2009 after McKibben appeared on the Colbert Report. In 2012, the group received the Katerva Award for behavioural change.

Campaigns:

International Day of Climate Action 10/10/10 Global Work Party Connect the Dots People's Climate March Many more can be found at https://campaigns.350.org/categories

Communication Strategy:

The organization's prioritizes communication through their press releases over all other channels. They also do a lot of communication through social media outlets, as they encourage people to like and share relevant pages. Additionally, their campaigns page spreads the word about relevant movements through petitions.

Oppositional Forces:

Fossil fuel companies, national governments

Type of Organization:

NGO

Tatics Used:

marches

social media campaigns

grassroots organizing