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 29 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.
STRIKE FOR THE PLANET
because we only have 63 weeks left in which to act
This week’s topic is TRANSIT.
TO RECAP
- The ability of the planet to support life is in grave and immediate danger.
- San Francisco must respond to this threat without reservation via concrete actions.
- Long-term responses must begin now in order to have any impact.
- The three long-term projects vital to SF’s survival are urban native forestation, black water recycling, and transportation.
- The prior two strike letters (weeks 27 and 28) covered native forestation and black water recycling.
- This week’s letter is on the last of the long-term projects: transit.
WHY DOES SF NEED TO CHANGE ITS TRANSIT PRACTICES
As the 2018 IPCC report made abundantly clear:
- the world only has 420 gigatons CO2 emissions left, in total, to spend,
- we must be significantly reducing our CO2 emissions by 2020 to stay within that number,
- we must get to 0 CO2 emissions by 2030, and
- if we succeed in doing this minimum amount in terms of reduction / time, it only means we have an OK chance of keeping the global temperature increase to 1.5°C (instead of the 3°-7°C increase we’re now on course for.)
Even a 1.5° C increase yields a likely 6 meter rise in sea level.1, 2, 3 SF is woefully unprepared for a 6 meter sea level rise.
This is why SF must actively reduce our CO2 emissions in every way possible; there is nothing to be lost and everything to be gained by doing so.
According to the California Air Resources Board, 41.1% of our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are due to transportation. Of that 41.1% from transportation, 28.0% is from passenger vehicles. That means over 2/3rds of our transportation CO2 output is due to passenger vehicles. Radically changing the CO2 output of passenger vehicles will therefore substantially change SF’s CO2 output.
HOW DOES SF CHANGE ITS TRANSIT PRACTICES
By making changes on multiple fronts simultaneously. For MUNI it means:
- Transit options must be increased. This means increasing lines, increasing frequency, increasing the types of vehicles available (with vehicles able to carry more passengers and vehicles for smaller numbers of passengers), increasing hours of operation, increasing neighborhood coverage, increasing access and safety for the disabled and elderly, and increasing business financial support to a level commensurate with the benefits received.
- SF must have an all-electric municipal fleet by 2025.
- SF must shift the focus for the MUNI fleet from replacement to repair. This greatly reduces both CO2 emissions and our dependence on private, often distant corporations.
- SF must apply immediately for the Volkswagen diesel emissions settlement monies to purchase zero emissions vehicles, and strongly encourage SFUSD to apply as well.4
- Any transit development that requires substantial infrastructure must be above 6 meters elevation.
- Regional transit operators must get in sync with each other in terms of fares, accessibility, coverage, schedules and other information, and CO2 emissions asap.
For private vehicles it means:
- SF must phase out all private vehicles on SF streets by 2025 at the latest. To achieve this, eliminate all private on-street vehicle parking, and institute CO2 pricing (similar to congestion pricing, but tied to vehicle efficiency), with rates increasing exponentially over the next 6 years.
- SF must promote cooperative buying of electric vehicles or cooperative use of electric vehicles for SF small businesses and for farmers who do business in SF (especially those who work farmers markets). This would be a good project for an SF municipal bank to undertake.
- SF must increase the number and locations of electric charging stations. Require charging stations at all gas stations in a 2:1 ratio (1 charging station for every 2 pumps with a minimum of 1 charging station).
For bicycles it means:
- Increasing bike parking on all commercially and industrially zoned blocks immediately. Don’t wait for requests or complaints. At the same time, make it much easier to request additional bike lock-ups.
- Separate bike lanes from both vehicular traffic and pedestrians. Strongly enforce traffic laws with an eye on safety. As it is now, there are few areas where it is safe for children to ride and many areas where it is still incredibly unsafe for experienced cyclists to ride.
Please remember, this is not business as usual. Business as usual has destroyed the planet we were born on. That planet, that biosphere, is gone forever. It is a place we came from and can never go back to. As Bill McKibben said in 20105, Earth is dead; we now live on Eaarth, and it’s a tough new planet to inhabit.
Right now we must take action to make this increasingly hostile planet capable of supporting life. If we don’t, if we fail in this, there won’t be any history to judge us. Whatever we do or don’t do right now, we will live to experience the results. Selfishness and opportunism, if nothing else, should drive us to finally try doing the right thing.
These long-term projects are the right things. Because they are long-term, they need to start now. Because it is literally almost too late.
FOOTNOTES
1. Global Temperature Increase of 1 Degree Caused Sea Level Rise of 6 Meters. IFLScience!
2. Paul Voosen. Antarctic ice melt 125,000 years ago offers warning. Science, Vol 362, Issue 6421, pp. 1339. 21-12-2018.
3. Ricarda Winkelmann, Anders Levermann, Andy Ridgwell, and Ken Caldeira. Combustion of available fossil fuel resources sufficient to eliminate the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Science Advances, Vol 1, no 8. 11-09-2015.
4. Volkswagen Environmental Mitigation Trust for California. https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/volkswagen-environmental-mitigation-trust-california
5. McKibben, Bill. Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet. Holt. 2010.