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. You can push your local politicians to act. It will make a difference!
This is the letter for week 106 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 of the topics for all the strike letters, see this story. Meanwhile…
STRIKE FOR THE PLANET
“To have lost is less disturbing than to wonder if we may possibly have won.”1
This week’s topic: The Return of the Natives
Because the survival of San Francisco depends on the health, diversity, and biomass of native species.
Define “native”
The UN Bern Convention defines native as “a species that has been observed in the form of a naturally occurring and self-sustaining population in historical times”2 while the International Council for Exploration of the Sea, modified after the Convention on Biological Diversity, defines native as a species “living within its natural range (past or present) including the area which it can reach and occupy using its natural dispersal systems.”3 In simpler terms, native means present in an area without any human intervention.4
What is native in San Francisco?
Trees: California buckeye, White alder, Red alder, Pacific madrone, Water birch, California hazel, Monterey cypress, California buckwheat, California black walnut, Juniper, Tan oak, Bishop pine, Monterey pine, California poplar, Holly-lead cherry, Coast live oak, Canyon live oak, Red willow, White willow, Coast redwood, California bay laurel, and more.5
Plants: California rose, California sage, Canyon larkspur, California poppy, Yarrow, Deerweed, California maidenhair fern, Bentgrass, Western service berry, Coast fiddleneck, Pearly everlasting, Coast angelica, Western columbine, Coast rock cress, Sea thrift, California sagebrush, Mugwort, Coast barberry, Alkali bulrush, California brome, Beach morning glory, Slough sedge, Franciscan paintbrush, Blueblossom, Soap plant, Miner’s lettuce, and much more.6
Fungi: Lion’s mane, Fly agaric, Honey mushroom, Hairy curtain crust, Amanita muscaria, Suillus pseudobrevipes, Chroogomphus pseudovinicolor, Hygrophorus gliocyclus, Suillus, Gomphidius, Lactarius, Russula, Caulorhiza umbonata, Agaricus augustus, Clitocybe deceptiva, Leucopaxillus albissimus, Lactarius fragilis, Tuber species, chanterelles, blewits, and many more.7
Algae: Laminaria farlowii, Macrocystis pyrifera, Egregia menziesii, Dictyoneurum californicum, Derbesia manna, Rhizocionium riparium, Ulva taeniata, Taonia lennebackerae, Blidingia minima, Pleurophycus gardneri, Mazzaella volans, Isabbottia ovalifolia, Halymenia californica, Sargassum palmeri, Weeksia reticulata, and many more.8
Insects and Arachnids: Anise swallowtail, Cabbage white, Red admiral, Painted lady, West coats lady, Coastal green hairstreak, Field crescent, California tortiseshell, California common ringlet, Monarch, Sandhill skipper, Bicolored carpenter ant, Shiny wood ant, Common harvester ant, Thief ant, Velvet ant, Apidae, Andrenidae, Colletidae, Halictidae, Megachilidae, California yellowjacket, Seven-spotted lady beetle, Cobalt milkweed beetle, California sulphur-winged grasshopper, Jerusalem cricket, Common green darner, Variegated meadowhawk, Sooty dancer, Tule bluet, Pacific forktail, Western black widow, Tarantula, Daddy longlegs, Western lynx spider, Aliatypus californicus, Calileptoneta californica, and more.9
Animals: Gray fox, Black-tailed deer, Ornate shrew, Broad-footed mole, California mouse, Coyote, Long-tailed weasel, North American river otter, Bobcat, Tule elk, Little brown myotis, California myotis, Gray whale, Humpback whale, California sealion, Sea otter, California tiger salamander, California slender salamander, California newt, Western toad, California red-legged frog, Sacramento splittail, Arrow goby, Longjaw mudsucker, Leopard shark, Salmon shark, Basking shark, Bat ray, Surf smelt, Brown rockfish, Bay pipefish, Barred surfperch, Pacific halibut, Steelhead trout, Riffle sculpin, and many more.10
So what if the natives are gone. What difference does it make?
Remember the old lady who swallowed a fly?11 Or the small domino that knocks down a two-story block?12 Little things that are part of big systems are immensely important.
For example, imagine a complex, high-energy clockwork. Remove a cog or two and it still operates because it has all kinds of redundancy built in, but the mechanism is under greater stress. Take out a few springs and now everything is whirling faster and slamming together harder, but it’s still working, kind of. Eventually, you’ll take out one more little piece, a piece that doesn’t look like it’s doing anything much, and the clockwork flies apart in explosive, catastrophic failure. Not only that, the pieces have been so damaged they can never be put together again.
Native species are the little things that make up an ecosystem (the big thing). While it may not look like fewer mice or bats or damselflies or newts or bull kelp or oak trees or barberry bushes are going to make a difference, every lessening of the health, diversity, and biomass in the food web weakens the ecosystem.
Or, to put it another way, natives are the ecological basis upon which life depends. Take native trees:
“Without them and the insects that co-evolved with them, local birds cannot survive. For example, research by the entomologist Doug Tallamy has shown that native oak trees support over 500 species of caterpillars whereas ginkgos, a commonly planted landscape tree from Asia, host only 5 species of caterpillars. When it takes over 6,000 caterpillars to raise one brood of chickadees, that is a significant difference.”13
But aren’t we screwing things up faster than native species can adapt?
Yes. And this is why we need to be not only returning natives as fast as possible but also working with neighbors to the north and south on assisted adaptation/migration of natives. Assisted adaptation means moving native species north or up in elevation, as the case may be, to where their climate needs are matched by changing temperatures and water availability. Depending on the ecosystems involved, this can look like assisted population migration where we move populations to new locations within historical species range, assisted range expansion where we move populations to suitable areas just beyond the historical range in a way that facilitates and mimics natural dispersal, and assisted species migration that moves populations to locations beyond those accessible by natural means.14 It’s about survival, and without natives — a lot of them, living in healthy ecosystems — the whole structure flies apart, damaged beyond repair.
This is also why ecosystems need legal rights and recognition. Multiple countries have already instituted legal rights for ecosystems.15 If Toldeo can do this16, 17, maybe SF can, too. If CA can finally, finally stand up to Nestlé’s long-term theft of the commons18, maybe SF can stand up for our ecosystems, too.
So who is responsible for making this happen?
We all are. We elected you. Here’s what you need to do:
- Give the biosphere legal recognition and rights in the City and County of SF.
- Aggressively pursue grant programs to fund regional adaptation work.
- Use taxes, fees, and steep fines to pay for ecosystem upkeep.
- Increase the number of required trees and plantings per new construction project, and make them all natives.
- Create neighborhood baseline tree counts, with increased number goals over time.
- Increase the pool of tree, creek, beach, park, and ecosystem ambassadors and give some powers of wardens (like in Belfast).
- Plant and maintain buffer ecosystems of native seagrass meadows on the bay side and seaweeds on the ocean sides.
- Create a green biosphere highway network linking the city’s ecosystems so that no species has to risk death by car to mate or eat or find water or migrate. Linking up the big parks would be a logical start (McLaren to Balboa to Glen Canyon to Mount Sutro to Golden Gate to Presidio and Lands End; McLaren to Balboa to Lake Merced and Fort Funston; McLaren to Candlestick to Yosemite Slough to Adam Rogers and Hilltop to India Basin Shoreline to Heron’s Head to Youngblood-Coleman and Pier 94 Wetlands to Islais Creek to Warm Water Cove and Starr King and Potrero Hill and Progress to Esprit and Crane Cove to Jackson, Mariposa, Bay Front, and Mission Creek to South Beach and The Embarcadero to Rincon to Coit Tower to Joe DiMaggio and Washington Square to Aquatic Park; from McLaren to Crocker Amazon to San Bruno to Sign Hill to Baden Orange to Milagra Ridge to Fairway Park and Pacifica Beach View). Requiring rooftop green spaces would be beneficial in multiple ways.
But… this is going to cost money
Do you have the faintest idea how expensive not spending money to mitigate climate change and the extinction crisis is?19 The costs of acting are much less than the costs of doing nothing.20 Just ask the insurance industry.21 And the military.22
So act now! Climate action “delayed” is climate action denied.
SF’s chances for survival are borderline, and require immediate action.23 You’ve taken oaths to act for the good of SF. You say you are bound by the Precautionary Principle. So act already.
The costs of climate change are huge.24, 25, 26, 27, 28 Damage is already being done and it’s going to get worse.29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38 You have to fight for the people of SF now while it’s still possible to accomplish anything!
Don’t wake up with water lapping around your floor and nothing living or able to live in SF and say “We have missed because we tried to miss, I suppose.”39
FOOTNOTES
1. Tomas Hardy. Return of the Native. Book V, chapter 5. 1878. https://gutenberg.org/files/122/122-h/122-h.htm.
2. “Convention on the conservation of European wildlife and natural habitats (Bern Convention)”. European Union. 1979. https://www.biodiversitya-z.org/content/native-species.
3. “ICES Code of Practice on the Introduction and Transfers of Marine Organisms”. ICES. 1994. https://www.biodiversitya-z.org/content/native-species.
4. Tumbleweed is not native. Yes, it can travel by itself and seed large areas of North America without human intervention, but it was human intervention that brought it here in the first place. It is also invasive because it is harming native ecosystems.
5. See Strike for the Planet week 27 letter: Trees.
6. SF Plant Finder. City and County of San Francisco. 2021. http://sfplantfinder.org/?choice=SF%20Natives.
7. David Arora. Mushrooms Demystified. Ten Speed Press, Berkeley. 1979, 1986.
8. The University and Jepson Herbaria. University of California, Berkeley. Accessed 5 May 2021. https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu.
9. “Wildlife of the San Francisco Bay Area”. SF Bay Wildlife Info. Accessed 5 May 2021. https://www.sfbaywildlife.info/index.htm.
10. “Wildlife of the San Francisco Bay Area”. SF Bay Wildlife Info. Accessed 5 May 2021. https://www.sfbaywildlife.info/index.htm.
11. “There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly”. Toddler Fun Learning. 19 August 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApmEM9-xA2c.
12. “Largest Toppling Domino Stones World Record”. Individual Domino Toppling. 8 August 2009. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcJv7l2W_h8.
13. Why Native Plants Matter. Audubon Society. https://www.audubon.org/content/why-native-plants-matter.
14. “Assisted Migration”. Climate Change Resource Center, United States Dept. of Agriculture. Accessed 5 May 2021. https://www.fs.usda.gov/ccrc/topics/assisted-migration.
15. Alex Bresler. “7 countries that have legally recognized the rights of nature”. Matador Network. 27 February 2020. https://matadornetwork.com/read/countries-legally-recognized-rights-nature/.
16. Trevor Bach. “Will Toledo Give Rights to Lake Erie?” U.S. News & World Report. 22 February 2019. https://www.usnews.com/news/cities/articles/2019-02-22/toledo-ohio-will-vote-on-whether-to-give-rights-to-lake-erie.
17. Stephanie Vermillion. “Ohio Residents Fight to Give Lake Erie Legal Rights”. HowStuffWorks. 7 April 2020. https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/conservation/issues/nature-legal-rights.htm.
18. Maanvi Singh. “Drought-hit California moves to halt Nestlé from taking millions of gallons of water”. The Guardian. 27 April 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/27/california-nestle-water-san-bernardino-forest-drought.
19. Eric Roston. “The Massive Cost of Not Adapting to Climate Change”. Bloomberg. 9 September 2019. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-09/the-massive-cost-of-not-adapting-to-climate-change.
20. Starre Vartan. “The Cost of Tackling Climate Change Is Less Than the Cost of Doing Nothing”. Treehugger. 21 April 2020. https://www.treehugger.com/tackling-climate-change-will-help-economy-when-we-need-it-most-4865281.
21. Andrew Hoffman. “Rising Insurance Costs May Convince People That Climate Change Risks Are Real”. Huffpost. 1 November 2018. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/insurance-costs-climate-change_b_5bd0a8d0e4b04d1f9a5582d9.
22. Sébastien Roblin. “The U.S. military is terrified of climate change. It’s done more damage than Iranian missiles.” NBC News. 20 September 2020. https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/u-s-military-terrified-climate-change-it-s-done-more-ncna1240484.
23. Richard Procter. “San Francisco Knows How to Stop Global Warming — Will It?” SF Weekly. 11 September 2019. https://www.sfweekly.com/news/san-francisco-climate-change-emissions/.
24. Harper’s Index. March 2021. https://harpers.org/archive/2021/03/.
25. Harper’s Index. March 2021. https://harpers.org/archive/2021/03/.
26. Dana Nuccitelli. “New report finds costs of climate change impacts often underestimated”. Yale Climate Connections. 18 November 2019. https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/11/new-report-finds-costs-of-climate-change-impacts-often-underestimated/.
27. Rebecca Hersher and Nathan Rott. “What Are The Costs Of Climate Change?” NPR. 16 September 2020. https://www.npr.org/2020/09/16/913693655/what-are-the-costs-of-climate-change.
28. Samantha Fields. “Insurance increasingly unaffordable as climate change brings more disasters”. Marketplace. 31 August 2020. https://www.marketplace.org/2020/08/31/insurance-increasingly-unaffordable-as-climate-change-brings-more-disasters/.
29. Matt McGrath. “Climate change: 12 years to save the planet? Make that 18 months”. BBC News. 24 July 2019. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48964736.
30. Heather Smith. “Climate Change: Even Worse Than We Thought”. Sierra. 8 October 2018. https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/climate-change-even-worse-we-thought-ipcc-report.
31. Michael Grose and Julie Arblaster. “Just how hot will it get this century? It’s worse than we thought”. Phys Org. 18 May 2020. https://phys.org/news/2020-05-hot-century-worse-thought.html.
32. Amelia Urry. “The scientist who first warned of climate change says it’s much worse than we thought”. Grist. 22 March 2016. https://grist.org/science/the-scientist-who-first-warned-of-climate-change-says-its-much-worse-than-we-thought/.
33. Rafi Letzter. “Today’s Climate Change Is Worse Than Anything Earth Has Experienced in the Past 2,000 Years”. Live Science. 25 July 2019. https://www.livescience.com/66027-climate-change-different.html.
34. John D. Sutter. “Vanishing”. CNN. Accessed 30 June 2020. https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2016/12/specials/vanishing/.
35. Peter Castagno. “Biodiversity Loss Worst in Human History — 1 Million Animal Species Risk Extinction”. Citizen Truth. 6 May 2019. https://citizentruth.org/biodiversity-loss-worst-in-human-history-1-million-animal-species-risk-extinction/.
36. Kristen Callihan. “Earth’s Currently Ongoing Sixth Mass Extinction Is Worse Than We Thought”. OutwardOn. 7 August 2017. https://www.outwardon.com/article/earths-currently-ongoing-sixth-mass-extinction-event-is-worse-than-we-thought/.
37. Lauren Frayer. “Scores Are Feared Dead In India After Himalayan Glacier Breaks Away”. NPR. 7 February 2021. https://www.npr.org/2021/02/07/965046888/scores-are-feared-dead-in-india-after-himalayan-glacier-breaks-away. It’s now looking like it was a landslide which makes the situation worse.
38. Zoya Teirstein. “2020 was the hottest year on record. We’ll remember it as one of the century’s coldest.” Grist. 16 January 2021. https://grist.org/climate/2020-was-the-hottest-year-on-record-well-remember-it-as-one-of-the-centurys-coldest/.
39. Tomas Hardy. Return of the Native. Book V, chapter 5. 1878. https://gutenberg.org/files/122/122-h/122-h.htm.