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This is what they had to say:

I have some exciting news to share: President Obama just signed into law an economic recovery bill containing $87 billion in green investment funds–the largest investment ever in clean energy solutions!

And it was your passion and commitment to bold climate action that made this day possible. For the last two weeks, you phoned Congress for more than 121 hours through the 1Sky website–the equivalent of five days of nonstop calling on behalf of a green recovery. Kudos also to our allies who flooded congressional inboxes with emails.

President Obama and the members of Congress who supported the bill heard you loud and clear and took bold action. If we want them to do so again in the future, they need to know we have their backs today.

Please send a ‘thank you’ note to President Obama and the 306 members of Congress who voted for a green recovery:

http://www.1sky.org/green-recovery-thankyou

The green investments in the recovery bill will not only create over 1.7 million green jobs our country needs urgently: they are also a critical down payment on a clean, renewable energy economy.

President Obama and the bill’s supporters in Congress took a bold step towards real climate solutions, and they deserve our thanks for a job well done. Please send a ‘thank you’ note to the President and those in Congress who backed a green recovery:

http://www.1sky.org/green-recovery-thankyou

This is only the first step of many to solve the climate challenge and build a clean economy. In the months ahead, we’ll have to keep pushing Congress and the President to enact strong caps on carbon pollution and a halt to new coal power plants.

But in the meantime, take a moment to appreciate what we’ve accomplished today. Thank you for taking ownership of this movement!

Liz Butler
Field and Outreach Director, 1Sky

Leading voices include James Hansen and Bill McKibben who call on concentrations not only to stop rising, but also to fall from today’s ~385 ppm down to 350 ppm. They make the case that we have already reached a concentration that would, if left this high, set off catastrophic climate change and a sea level rise of many meters. Their belief stems from a review of the history of Earth’s climate over the last many million years that shows whenever GHG concentrations were this high, sea level was more than 75 feet above the level today. Those who push for a global regime to achieve 450 ppm (or higher) believe the transition to less ice and higher seas will occur so slowly that we can adapt more easily over the next century than we can revolutionize our energy system from fossil fuels to zero carbon sources over the next 25 years.

For instance, the US has hundreds of billions invested in coal plants, sunk costs that lead rational economists to think Al Gore’s Repower America plan (zero carbon electricity in 10 years) is a nonstarter. But if Hansen and McKibben are right about the catastrophic costs of >350 ppm, maybe Al Gore has chosen the best target. And when our country sets its mind to something, impossibilities disappear. Maybe Obama can help inspire a sustainable energy transition over the next eight years on the scale of the ’40s war effort or the ’60s Apollo Project.

My current thinking focuses on the 450 ppm goal as a policy driver for now (which would take tremendous change in the developed world of an 80% cut in emissions over the next 42 years). As yesterday’s blog described, our country can probably achieve this at very little cost. As long as we set up our cap and trade system as a flexible instrument ready to adapt, we will be set. If the scientific consensus emerges that 450 ppm is indeed too high, the emission cap cuts should accelerate accordingly. My energy portfolio projections make zero carbon US electricity more plausible for 2030+ (even with aggressive growth for wind, solar, and efficiency) than Gore’s call by 2018. But I think institutions with ample resources should be Repower America models. For instance, Princeton University should step up and join Google, Yahoo!, UNC-Chapel Hill and others committed to climate neutrality in their global footprint. Once the models are established (with their lessons learned through success and failure), they can guide the nation and indeed the world to a sustainable future.

What do you think is the optimal GHG concentration?

Should we aim for 350, 450 or some other level? What first steps do you think the new federal government should take?

Together, we can stabilize the climate and achieve energy security.