Yes, 350 is a good shorthand for a public campaign. The challenge to us is concretizing it:  getting it into public policy and most important of all congressional legislation.  Next year the flimsy Boxer bill will be reintroduced and predictably supported by the big, compromised enviros like NRDC and ED as well as USCAP. Phasing out coal powered plants via a steeply declining cap on CO2 emissions from each plant should be our top priority, but if we get business as usual, and that mucky system called carbon trading, this goal will elude us. Even using 2030 as the final date for ending coal violates, in my opinion, the 350 strategy; does anyone believe we can get back to 350 ppm if we burn coal for another 22 years? The coal and nuclear gangs are still pushing for subsidies and tax breaks, which will prolong their life time (if not ours) and squash the emergence of renewabl energy for decades. These are the concrete realities that McKibben's campaign and all the others need to confront. What happens or doesn't happen in the US congress will determine what happens in the rest of the world. We can't afford to accept political deals designed to keep us reliant on coal and fossil fuels for the foreseeable future, and only a united uncompromising legislative agenda, as opposed to a global treaty requiring hundreds of nations to sign on to it, will cut the mustard. I sincerely hope McKibben and all others will put their efforts behind specific strategies and legislation, to be prepared for hot battles next year by adversaries seeking token solutions that protect their profits and control.

350 it has to be and thanks to Ken for his leadership.

But re-read Climate Code Red and consider Joseph Romm's evaluation of 350:

"staying below 450 ppm is technologically doable, but would be the greatest achievement in the history of the human race, by far. It would require a global effort sustained for decades comparable to what the U.S. did for just the few years of World War II (the biggest obstacle is not technological, but political ­ conservatives currently would never let progressives and moderates pursue such a strategy).
If 350 ppm is needed (and I'm not at all sure it is) then the deniers and delayers have won, since such a target is hopeless."

To get to 350 in time we need to throw a switch: we need to agree that 350 is impossible without escaping BAU first. The politics of climate change is not a level playing field; the policy topology has sinks and valleys; path dependence will keep us to car culture paths (for only one example)till we are over the climate flip. Governments and business are severely constrained:

"As your country puts on the Golden Straightjacket two things tend to happen: your economy grows and your politics shrinks... [The] Golden Straightjacket narrows the political and economic choices of those in power to relatively tight parameters. That is why it is increasingly difficult to find any real differences between ruling and opposition parties in those countries that have put on the Golden Straightjacket. Once your country has put on the Golden Straightjacket, its political choices get reduced to Pepsi or Coke - to slight nuances of taste, slight nuances of policy..."
Thomas Friedman The Lexus and the Olive Tree

We have to return to 350 but we can't get there in BAU. Escape BAU and as Lester Brown points out in PlanB 3.0 80% by 2020 becomes possible.

5 keys to a safe-climate future

Our goal is a safe-climate future - we have no right to bargain away species or human lives.
We are facing rapid warming impacts: the danger is immediate, not just in the future.
For a safe climate future, we must take action now to stop emissions and to cool the earth.
Plan a large-scale transition to a post-carbon economy and society.
Recognise a climate and sustainability emergency, because we need to move at a pace far beyond business and politics as usual.
Climate Code Red