This is the letter for week 2 of a weekly climate strike that went on for 4 years in front of SF City Hall, beginning early March 2019. For more context, see this story. For an annotated table of contents to all the strike letters, see this story.
STRIKE FOR THE PLANET
while we can still make any difference at all, cause it’s now or never
It won’t be cheap, or easy, or politically feasible, or pro-capitalist, or any of the rest of the nonsense we’ve let blind us to both the science and the screaming of the biosphere as it dies.
But we have to do it, and we have to do it now.
So let’s talk about IDEAS.
We’re facing:
climate chaos
the ocean ecosystem crashing
pervasive, omnipresent pollutants
a global extinction crisis
human overpopulation
sea level rise
ocean acidification
deforestation
and so much more.
We’re facing environmental bankruptcy and we’re the cause.
Which also means we can be the solution.
But to solve anything, we need all hands on deck now, because we have a lot less time to stop the cancer than we did to create it in the first place.
Specifically, at all levels of community and at every level of organizational size, we need to be brainstorming, testing out, and implementing every possible strategy we can devise to stop making things worse, and to try to make things better.
So what do we, in SF, have to do?
The City and County of San Francisco must provide incentives to any employee or group of employees who can come up with ways to save energy, reduce pollution, increase biodiversity, enrich ecosystems, support family planning and birth control, help strengthen the coastal ecosystems above and below water, capture carbon, or in some other biologically positive way support SF’s ability to survive what’s coming.
Incentives could be monetary, from savings garnered through idea implementation, for example, or via prizes (like that put out by the X Prize Foundation for space travel); they could be non-monetary but of value (the lease of an apartment on high ground, or a change in job duties to involve implementation of the idea); or they could be valuable through contributing to creating a survivable planet (such as awards, patents, and very public recognition.)
Calls for ideas need to be put out everywhere, to employees at all levels, and in multiple languages. Each employee is the expert at their job – what can make their work be for, not against, life continuing on this planet?
Suggestions can be made publicly or anonymously, and there needs to be a guarantee of full whistleblower protection for any idea when such a thing would be applicable.
MEMO
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TO: all City and County employees of San Francisco
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FROM: Mayor Breed and the Board of Supervisors
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SUBJECT: Your ideas to improve SF’s future
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DATE: March 14, 2019
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LEVEL OF IMPORTANCE: globally vital
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CONTENT: SF needs your ideas! You’re the expert at your job, you know your working environment – what could be changed, done differently, or done better to save energy or water, produce less or no pollution, reduce resources used or increase biological diversity and bio survival, protect our coasts, reduce harm, implement cradle-to-cradle use, or improve SF’s chances of dealing with any aspects of climate chaos or extinction. We want your ideas! Spell it out, as much as possible, and sent to the Office of the Mayor.
Anonymous idea submissions are fine, but we’d like to recognize you, pick your brains for details, and give credit where credit is due. Contact the Office of the Mayor for more information.
Is it crazy to ask for a city and county to ask for help?
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Maybe in the old world, yes, but we’re in a new world now and, to survive it, we need all the expertise, resources, and help we can get. These people are all working for SF; encourage them to work for SF’s survival, too!