350 day fails to impress

Or as my friend down under, Andrew Bolt, calls it: “Day of apathy”

Sydney yesterday demonstrated the depth of international passion about global warming through several highly pictorial stunts:

It was part of a series of events across Sydney yesterday by the environment movement 350.org. Australia was the first of 179 countries to take part in 4500 events worldwide as part of the International Day of Climate Action.

Counting the people in the picture, though, I’d say that this is not a global day of action, but global day of apathy. Or, let’s hope, a global day of mounting scepticism.

Left: People outside the Opera House take a stand on climate change yesterday. Top: Protesters at Manly and bottom, Marton Hidas at the Opera House. Photo: Adam Hollingworth, Janie Barrett

And that’s even without discounting for the tourists and the unfortunate children who were simply dragged there by parents warning them they may not have a future:

Among those on the Opera House steps showing their support was Rae Lawrence from Croydon, who brought her sons, Cameron, 6, and Nicholas, 8. ‘’We care about the future and I want them to have one to live in,’’ she said.

UPDATE

Apologies. From Greenpeace, this proof that the crowds in Sydney may have been even bigger than I sneeringly suggest:

UPDATE 2

The global day of apathy rolls on in Rome:

And in Kiev:

And Dunedin, just the one:

In Copenhagen, where the world’s leaders will meet in December to discuss slashing emissions – or not:

And Shanghai, city of 17 million, in a country that is now the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases:

But you know it’s a snoozer, media-wise, when “balloon boy”, his mom, and the death of Soupy Sales gets above the fold on Google News and “350” doesn’t:

UPDATE: Maybe I jinxed it, maybe it just took awhile for enough “critical mass” of stories to accumulate. Google has now elevated 350 day to top story status, even though it has far less the number of linked stories as the other top entries. An editorial decision, most likely.

Had I not seen Bolt’s column on it, I wouldn’t even have remembered to mention it myself. What did you do for “350 day”?

UPDATE 10/25: Bill McKIbben can’t do simple math.From 350.org website…seems to me the other two stories have a lot more new coverage. Lets see:

350 event: 322 news stories,

Church janitor: 854 news stories

Obama-Iran: 5255 news stories

So how does he get “for a little while, we’re the most talked about news story on the planet”?

As of this writing, they’ve only managed 661 news stories and have fallen off the Google above the fold section.