You can make a difference to the hurt being caused by climate chaos and the great extinction event, in your town or your city! How? Reuse, repurpose, and recycle this information.
This is the letter for week 40 of a weekly climate strike that went on for 4 years in front of San Francisco City Hall, beginning early March 2019. For more context, see this story. For an annotated table of contents to see topics for all the strike letters, see this story. Meanwhile…
STRIKE FOR THE PLANET
Because the only minorities destroying this country are the rich.1
This week’s topic is IT’S AN EMERGENCY!!
The biosphere is losing its ability to support life.
The ocean is dying, the water is rising and acidifying, the corals are bleaching, plastic fills every nook and cranny, the planet is heating, weather is worsening, the ice is melting, methane is belching out of the permafrost, the human population is still growing, ecosystems are being fragmented and destroyed, the number of species and of individuals in those species is decreasing (except for humans), the atmosphere is filling with greenhouse gases, and the ruling oligarchs are conspiring to make all of the above worse in pursuit of profits. By this point, I’m assuming none of the above points requires footnotes and links, but if any of them do, let me know and I’ll supply them to you. This information is distressingly easy to find.2
The biosphere dying is due to human accumulation of great wealth.
We have more billionaires than ever3, and they all perfectly meet the definition of robber barons.4 We have the largest income disparity since the Great Depression.5 We’ve seen the wealth of the very wealthy grow exponentially in recent years.6 How does this connect to the crises facing us?
Great wealth is the result of great theft.
The theft that creates great wealth can be theft from other species (such as when the resources supporting the CA ecosystem were stolen for European grass and cattle7), from other humans (such as the Sacklers and opioids8), or from both (indigenous fishing practices support ecosystems, while commercial fishing permanently denudes them9). The very wealthy10 have caused and are causing the climate and extinction crises. They are stealing from other species (such as whales11, orangutans12, newts13, and redwoods14), from other humans (the Delta tunnel15), and from both (Cancer Alley, for example16).
Great wealth needs to be seen as evidence of a great crime — because it is. Great wealth cannot be worshipped or admired, it cannot drive policy or dictate legislation, nor can it be allowed to continue destroying the ability of the planet to support life.
Unprecedented theft has caused this extinction and climate emergency.
There have been enormous increases in pollution17, CO2 output18, and ecosystem destruction and species loss19, 20 in recent years. Most of the damage we’ve done to the planet has occurred in the last 40 years.21 People born in the 1960’s will be the last to have an average life expectancy.22 That is why the children are fighting so hard. They are, like the global poor, the main victims of climate change that they did not cause and in no way will benefit from. Yet, so far, we’ve refused to acknowledge this truth (take, for example, how we treat climate refugees and what happened with the climate lawsuit23).
We have to fight against such theft now.
We have VERY LITTLE TIME and a LOT to do.24
Politicians either need to lead the fight or get out of the way NOW.
It’s long past time to take the San Francisco climate emergency declaration seriously and DO SOMETHING; there is plenty SF can and must do. You can be a perfectly nice person who would have made a fine politician in the past, but we are not in normal times and perfectly nice will kill us all. Can you rise to the occasion? If not, get out of the way of those who can. Your life, too, depends on it.
There are only 48 weeks left.25
FOOTNOTES
1. Sign seen at the San Francisco Women’s March, 18 January 2020.
2. John Cairns, Jr. Earth’s Biosphere in Peril. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. March 2011. https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream/handle/10919/25015/BiosphereInPeril.pdf.
3. World’s Billionaires Increase in Number and Are Wealthier than Ever. Daily News Article. 15 December 2018. https://www.rarejob.com/dna/2018/12/15/worlds-billionaires-increase-in-number-and-are-wealthier-than-ever/.
4. Mark Russell. Tech Moguls: Modern-Day Robber Barons. Newser. 1 July 2012. https://www.newser.com/story/149255/tech-moguls-modern-day-robber-barons.html.
5. Matthew Johnston. A Brief History of Income Inequality in the United States. Investopedia. 25 June 2019. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/110215/brief-history-income-inequality-united-states.asp.
6. Simone Pathe. “The wealthiest are getting wealthier, and lobbying has a lot to do with it”. PBS News Hour. 19 January 2015. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/wealthiest-getting-wealthier-lobbying-lot.
7. Janneke HilleRisLambers, Stephanie G Yelenik, Benjamin P Colman, and Jonathan M Levine. “California annual grass invaders: the drivers or passengers of change?” The Journal of Ecology. September 2010. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2936119/.
8. Ralph Ellis and Melanie Schuman. “Hundreds of cities, counties and Native American tribes file federal lawsuit against Sackler family over opioid crisis”. CNN. 24 March 2019. https://edition.cnn.com/2019/03/24/health/sackler-lawsuit/index.html.
9. Ocean Tides. The Destruction of the Marine Ecosystem. Sciencing. 25 April 2017. https://sciencing.com/destruction-marine-ecosystem-5777.html.
10. Tess Riley. “Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions, study says”. The Guardian. 10 July 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change.
11. Andrea Barthelemy. “Hungry whales are stealing food from Alaska’s fishermen”. Gulf Times. 29 January 2020. https://www.gulf-times.com/story/604382/Hungry-whales-are-stealing-food-from-Alaska-s-fish.
12. The Effects Of Palm Oil. Orangutan Foundation International. 2019. https://orangutan.org/rainforest/the-effects-of-palm-oil/.
13. California Newt -Taricha torosa. CaliforniaHerps.com. 2000-2020. http://www.californiaherps.com/salamanders/pages/t.t.torosa.html.
14. “California redwoods pushed to the brink of extinction”. Poughkeepsie Journal. 5 September 2015. https://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/tech/2015/09/05/california-redwoods-pushed-brink-extinction/71781298/.
15. Dan Bacher. Newsom’s Delta Tunnel Planning Moves Full Speed Ahead. Fish Sniffer. 13 January 2020. https://fishsniffer.com/index.php/2020/01/13/newsoms-delta-tunnel-planning-moves-full-speed-ahead/.
16. Tristan Baurick, Lylla Younes, and Joan Meiners. Welcome to “Cancer Alley,” Where Toxic Air Is About to Get Worse. ProPublica. 30 October 2019. https://www.propublica.org/article/welcome-to-cancer-alley-where-toxic-air-is-about-to-get-worse.
17. Eileen Shim. Over the Last 43 Years, Here’s How Much Pollution We’ve Put Into the Air. Mic. 18 March 2014. https://www.mic.com/articles/85663/over-the-last-43-years-here-s-how-much-pollution-we-ve-put-into-the-air.
18. John Cook. “Why didn’t we have global warming during the Industrial Revolution?” Skeptical Science. 9 July 2010. https://skepticalscience.com/Industrial-Revolution-global-warming.htm.
19. Current Extinction Rate 10 Times Worse Than Previously Thought. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/current-extinction-rate-10-times-worse-previously-thought/.
20. Damian Carrington. “Earth has lost half of its wildlife in the past 40 years, says WWF”. The Guardian. 30 September 2014. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/29/earth-lost-50-wildlife-in-40-years-wwf.
21. Susmita Baral. “Cause and Effect: The damage humans have done in Earth’s history”. Greener Ideal. 4 December 2012. https://greenerideal.com/news/environment/1204-the-damage-humans-have-done-in-earths-history/.
22. Ted Rall. A Grim New Definition of Generation X. Common Dreams. 01 January 2020. https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/01/01/grim-new-definition-generation-x.
23. Robinson Meyer. A Climate-Lawsuit Dissent That Changed My Mind. The Atlantic. 22 January 2020. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/01/read-fiery-dissent-childrens-climate-case/605296/.
24. See the prior 39 weekly letters for specifics on what needs to be done and for timelines.
25. Only 11 Years Left to Prevent Irreversible Damage from Climate Change, Speakers Warn during General Assembly High-Level Meeting. United Nations. 28 March 2019. https://www.un.org/press/en/2019/ga12131.doc.htm.