Bill McKibben is a powerful individual who believes he needs “to go against my sense of who I’m most comfortable being. It seems like it’s the thing that’s required now” (1). Bill McKibben was one of the eight individuals to begin a movement in 2008 called 350.org. This organization wanted to try and create global organization regarding what is considered the first and largest issue that our planet has ever faced. The central problem being faced is that our planet is running out of atmosphere into which waste products, specifically carbon dioxide is a byproduct of burning fossil fuel. This can result in climate change, water and food shortages, and rising energy prices. This isn’t just Americas problem, “the wealthy countries need to reduce its carbon footprint by 80 to 90 percent reductions” (2). The planet is not what’s going to suffer, us citizens are going to suffer.

Turned outs CNN had called 350.org’s movement, “the most widespread day of political activity in the planets history” (7). This idea compares with what Charles Duhigg believes. Duhigg explores how strong relationships combined with more distant connections have the ability to motivate larger groups to come together to work towards one large common goal. “strong ties, or close relationships, combined with weak ties, or distant connections, have the power to mobilize large groups toward a singular goal” (87). Keep in mind, McKibben and his team of seven people are not famous people. They’re just like your average citizen; they reached out and connected with both strong and weak ties to create a national widespread event that was national noticed and acknowledged. This all happened in just 48 hours. We can additionally connect this to Anne Hallward, who believes one story can lead a whole society to stand up and act out. It doesn’t matter how old you are, what race you are, what your gender is, or how famous you are. Linking together Anne Hallwards idea of how a single story can help change the world, in addition to Charles Duhiggs idea of strong and weak ties to create change, is all supported by the work done by Bill McKibben and 350.org.