By Tyrone Jay V. Samson

DMC College Foundation, in line with its advocacy to “Go Green” and put environmental consciousness at the top of its community extension priorities, recently participated in the worldwide simultaneous common call for action to put the world on a course to solve the climate crisis.

DMC students together with the school officials, faculty and staff were in the DMC open field to show their support to the 350 movement to showcase their solidarity with the citizens from all over the world whose very survival is threatened by the climate crisis. They formed the figure of 350 in the open field and beat drums all 350 times. The students and school officials then at once sang Michael Jackson’s “Heal the World” song to end the ceremony.

“This action is a precursor that DMC is going green and we “scream green”,  hence we put environmental integrity through environmental ethics as one  of our main agenda in the years to come,” DMC AVP for External Affairs Randy Iniego said.

The event is simultaneous with global day of rallies, marches and protests on Saturday in many cities worldwide. Moreover, communities of faith all over the globe rang church bells, beat drums, and blow horns last Sunday. The 350.org, the official website of the 350 movement, proclaimed that their focus for the weekend is on “coordinating candlelight vigils at iconic and strategic locations around the world, and vigils for Earth’s survival.”

“This is the school’s own way of helping spread the word that with global warming, the world is slowly, is gradually changing as we know it and threaten the lives of millions of people. This is our way, our own contribution to the global call for pressure on governments and our political leaders to adapt solutions that science and justice demand to save our planet,” DMC Student Affairs Coordinator Cherrie Rose Sagario said.

Here are some facts about the 350 movement against global warming.

What is the 350 movement? This movement is a community for inspiring the Earth’s conservation and stop global warming.

So, what is global warming and what’s the problem anyway? An article published by CNN.com wrote that “the science is clear. Global warming is happening faster than ever and humans are responsible. Global warming is caused by releasing what are called greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The most common greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide. Many of the activities we do every day like turning the lights on, cooking of food, or heating or cooling our homes rely on energy sources like coal and oil that emit carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases. This is a major problem because global warming destabilizes the delicate balance that makes life on this planet possible. But don’t give up hope! You can help stop global warming by taking action here at 350.org.

What does this 350 number even mean? 350 is the number that leading scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide—measured in “Parts Per Million” in our atmosphere. 350 PPM—it’s the number humanity needs to get back to as soon as possible to avoid runaway climate change. By now, the planet has 390 parts per million CO2 – and this number is rising by about 2 parts per million every year. Scientists are now saying that’s too much – that number is higher than any time seen in the recorded history of our planet – and we’re already beginning to see disastrous impacts on people and places all over the world. Glaciers everywhere are melting and disappearing fast—and they are a source of drinking water for hundreds of millions of people. Mosquitoes, who like a warmer world, are spreading into lots of new places, and bringing malaria and dengue fever with them. Drought is becoming much more common, making food harder to grow in many places. Sea levels have begun to rise, and scientists warn that they could go up as much as several meters this century. If that happens, many of the world’s cities, island nations, and farmland will be underwater. The oceans are growing more acidic because of the CO2 they are absorbing, which makes it harder for animals like corals and clams to build and maintain their shells and skeletons. Coral reefs could start dissolving at an atmospheric CO2 concentration of 450-500 ppm.

If we are already past 350, are we all doomed? No. We’re like the patient that goes to the doctor and learns he’s overweight, or his cholesterol is too high. He doesn’t die immediately—but until he changes his lifestyle and gets back down to the safe zone, he’s at more risk for heart attack or stroke. The planet is in its danger zone because we’ve poured too much carbon into the atmosphere, and we’re starting to see signs of real trouble: melting ice caps, rapidly spreading drought. We need to scramble back as quickly as we can to safety.

How do we create the political change to steer towards 350? We need an international agreement to reduce carbon emissions fast. The United Nations is working on a global climate treaty, which is supposed to be completed this December of 2009 at a conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. But the current plans for the treaty are much too weak to get us back to safety. This treaty needs to put a high enough price on carbon that we stop using so much. It also needs to ensure poor countries like the Philippines a fair chance to develop. This year, we can create a grassroots movement connected by the web and active all over the world.

An article published in CNN.com. wrote that the debate now turns from the question of “if global warming happens” to the more fitting questions such as “how fast”, “what’s the collateral damage” and “what we can do?”

Another article in the Internet disclosed that “accelerating arctic warming and other early climate impacts have led scientists to conclude that we are already above the safe zone at our current 390ppm, and that unless we are able to rapidly return to 350 ppm this century, we risk reaching tipping points and irreversible impacts such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. The Arctic is sending us perhaps the clearest message that climate change is occurring much more rapidly than scientists previously thought. In the summer of 2007, sea ice was roughly 39% below the summer average for 1979-2000, a loss of area equal to nearly five United Kingdoms. Many scientists now believe the Arctic will be completely ice free in the summertime between 2011 and 2015, some 80 years ahead of what scientists had predicted just a few years ago.”