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 34 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 2020 is the deadline — literally. So why aren’t you acting on this, the most important problem ever to face our species?
This week’s topic is about getting and maintaining FOCUS.
WHY?
Because we have to cut CO2 output 15% below 2019 levels by the end of this year.
We have to cut another 15% below 2019 levels by the end of 2021.
We have to keep cutting 15% off 2019 levels each year until we hit 0%, and we have to hit 0% by 2028.1
And even that may still doom us. We should have hit 0% already.
We have killed off 60% of animal populations since 1970.2
We have destroyed 83% of wild mammals.3
We are responsible for the extreme decline in the numbers and variety of insects.4
And the ocean is dying.5
We have passed tipping points6 and are fast approaching more tipping points. Each one passed is a great mistake. Are you watching Australia? That’s us in 6 months. The Limits to Growth predicted this in 1972.7 Exxon has known for 60 years.8
You have to keep your eyes on the prize, and that prize is a planet that supports life. You can’t keep acting like this is one of a number of all equally important issues, or like it’s better to focus on little things (or at least put out a press release about little things) right now than it is to tackle this huge problem.
BECAUSE:
THERE ARE NO OTHER ISSUES.
IN SIMPLE TERMS:
Congratulations, you’ve decided to move to a new planet! We’ll call this new planet Errth because it took a continuous set of grotesque errors to get you here. And you’re staying, we all are, because we’ve passed the point of no return, there is no going back now, and we stupidly keep making the same mistakes that got us here in the first place, over and over. Deliberately!
Fortunately for us, we dragged the entire biosphere of Earth to Errth with us! So we may be able to live here. Unfortunately, Errth is hostile to life, and getting more hostile every day. That means the biosphere, our life support system, is dying. That would be bad enough, but we’re also trying to destroy it at the same time — burning the candle at both ends, one might say. It will not last the night.
So what do you do on a hostile planet with failing life support systems? In The Martian, Mark Watney survived by knowing the science, listening to experts, and working the problem. He survived by clearly defining each problem, then identifying a solution to it, and implementing that solution. He survived by working until he fixed the problem and he did all of this fast enough to survive. He survived by doing whatever was needed over and over and over until he didn’t need to do anymore.
He did not pretend being on a hostile planet was business as usual.
Do you need non-fiction examples? They’re less cheery. You need to get real and work the problem, so that we might survive. This means focusing and taking action, like they did on Apollo 13 after the accident. Deny, delay, disbelieve and listen to everything but the facts, and we get Chernobyl.
Only, in this case, much worse.
So you better start tending to the biosphere fast. “How?” you ask.
You have 36 weeks of specifics sitting in your office somewhere, and there will be more coming. There’s so much good science out there and so many people trying to work the problems, there’s no excuse for inaction. SF immediately needs all renewable energy, massive planting of native trees and grasses (including in the bay and on the coast), black water recycling, increased albedo, and outlawed or taxed to oblivion plastics, etc. But you already know all this.
What you don’t seem to know is that if you continue not working the problem, you will die from it. Your parents will die from it. Your children will die from it. The biosphere is what keeps us alive, and it is dying.
I’m doing my job. You need to start doing yours. 51 weeks left.
FOOTNOTES
1. Oliver Milman. Carbon Emissions Must Be Cut ‘Significantly’ by 2020, Says UN Report. Our World. 07 November 2013. https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/carbon-emissions-must-be-cut-significantly-by-2020-says-un-report.
2. Damian Carrington. Humanity has wiped out 60% of animal populations since 1970, report finds. The Guardian. 29 October 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/30/humanity-wiped-out-animals-since-1970-major-report-finds.
3. Damian Carrington. Humans just 0.01% of all life but have destroyed 83% of wild mammals - study. The Guardian. 21 May 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/21/human-race-just-001-of-all-life-but-has-destroyed-over-80-of-wild-mammals-study.
4. Damian Carrington. Plummeting insect numbers ‘threaten collapse of nature’. The Guardian. 10 February 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/plummeting-insect-numbers-threaten-collapse-of-nature.
5. Joe McCarthy and Erica Sanchez. 87% of the World’s Oceans Are Dying: Report. Global Citizen. 26 July 2018. https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/87-of-worlds-oceans-are-dying-climate-change/.
6. Methane release from permafrost loss, glacial loss, and human overpopulation are three we’ve already tipped and are going to be feeling the consequences of forever.
7. Graham Turner and Cathy Alenander. “Limits to Growth was right. New research shows we’re nearing collapse”. The Guardian. 1 September 2014. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/02/limits-to-growth-was-right-new-research-shows-were-nearing-collapse.
8. John Cook, Geoffrey Supran, Naomi Oreskes, Ed Maibach, and Stephan Lewandowsky. “Exxon has misled Americans on climate change for decades. Here’s how to fight back.” The Guardian. 23 October 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/23/exxon-climate-change-fossil-fuels-disinformation.