350

Today is the big "show" I've been mentioning in the last couple of posts. Remember when I was touting the merits of dedicating your philanthropic efforts to a cause? My father has definitively decided that global warming must be stopped. Bill McKibben, Vermont writer and activist for climate change, has declared this day (October 24) a "Day of Action," where people around the world organize an event or an action to raise awareness about this problem. And with that, I suppose the time has come to tell you... I'm sort of in a band. My dad and brothers started it up a couple of years ago--just playing Irish music and performing locally for fun. When I moved back from Oregon I got roped in to singing for them. The event my father chose to organize in the spirit of Mr. Mckibben was 350 minutes of music by various local groups and musicians, held at my old regional high school (yeah, regional--three towns, 7-12, 400 kids--I grew up in a very rural area).

So what does 350 mean? According to scientists, it is the "safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere." Currently, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 hovers around 390 parts per million (ppm), which is significantly higher than it can be to sustain human life for an extended period of time. Basically, our atmosphere needs to go on a serious CO2 diet and our big dirty cars and power plants and smelly cows are the negatively influential friends who take you out for margaritas and nachos every Thursday night. It's pretty complicated and I don't claim to be an expert, but basically global warming occurs when the sun casts its lovely rays of D3 down on the earth and heats the surface. The earth absorbs some of that warmth, but also reflects some back, which is the Earth's way of balancing its temperature. The problem occurs when too much of that reflected heat is trapped beneath a layer of greenhouse gases and cannot escape into space.

Here in Vermont, our air is about as clear as it can get, but we have begun to see the impact of climate change. It rained every day this summer, which was unacceptable :) Whether this was a direct effect of global warming of if it's just the natural order of things, I can't pretend to know. But what better way to bring the community together on this (rainy) Saturday than stage a little musical extravaganza?! This is what I'll be wearing...

(skirt: vintage, hemmed; tights: GAP; boots: ALDO; shirt: charlotte russe; belt: thrifted; scarf: thrifted; woven purse: thrifted)