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 38 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
Act now while change still makes a difference,
or too soon it’ll be too late.
This week’s topic is ENERGY.
In the next 9 years, San Francisco must switch to 100%, zero-net-carbon-emission, renewable energy. That means we have to start now.
IS SUCH A REDUCTION POSSIBLE?
Over 100 cities already get at least 70% of their electricity from renewable sources.1 100% of all energy used in Burlington, Vermont is renewable, and in Greensburg, Kansas, and in Aspen, Colorado, and there are more municipalities worldwide working to do the same.2 In Renewable Energy In Cities you will find extensive guides, information, and implementation strategies, plus multiple examples from other municipalities.3 Yes, it’s possible. It’s also absolutely necessary.
WHY DO WE HAVE TO GET TO 100%, ZERO-NET-CARBON-EMISSION, RENEWABLE ENERGY, AND WHY SO FAST?
Cities account for 65% of global energy use and 70% of man-made carbon emissions.4 We have to hit net zero emissions by 20305, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 or cities and civilization are unlikely to survive.11 If you want a visualization of how serious the situation is, we were releasing the equivalent of 4 Hiroshima bombs per second of energy into the ocean in 2013.12 That rate has picked up since.13
SO HOW DOES SF GET TO 100%, ZERO-NET-CARBON-EMISSION, RENEWABLE ENERGY BY 2030?
We get there by:
- considering energy as 3 separate sectors,
- changing energy production,
- changing energy use, and
- changing who controls our energy.
1. Considering energy as 3 separate sectors
When we independently examine and work on fixing energy for buildings, and for transport, and the creation of an integrated urban energy system, it is easier to find and rapidly implement solutions in each of these areas.
2. Changing how our energy is produced
This involves legislating for, investing in, requiring via city codes, and maximizing:
- solar (on all buildings in SF)
- wind (on all buildings in SF over 5 stories tall — vertical axis, such as the Windbelt or spiral drag turbines, to reduce noise and bird deaths16)
- tidal (a study was done for SF in 2006 — so drop the other shoe already)
conservation
- ground source heat pumps14
- harvesting free energy generation (such as at fitness facilities15 and dances), and
- solid biomass (human waste) and “waste” methane (from compost) consumption
3. Changing how our energy is used
This means:
conservation
- changing building design and allowed materials
- excising fossil fuels and private cars from our transport system, and
- changing legislation regarding appliances/machines, allowing for maximum conservation
4. Changing who controls our energy
It is long past time to municipalize the power grid, and we must develop seawater district cooling17 for the city.
All of this involves changing how we plan, inventorying what we own, examining where we buy renewable energy, how we regulate energy, the ways in which we aggregate demand for energy, how we finance renewable projects, how and when we advocate for and facilitate change, and pushing at the regional and state levels for rapid change starting now.
This planet will be able to support life for at least another billion years18 and some life will survive this extinction event we’ve caused.19 What won’t survive is the biosphere that created and sustains us. That is dying20, and we will die with it, unless we act and act now and keep acting as long as needed.
There are only 50 weeks left.
FOOTNOTES
1. CDP. https://www.cdp.net/en/cities/world-renewable-energy-cities.
2. Zayan Guedim. Top 5 U.S. Cities Powered by Renewable Energy. EDGY. 18 April 2017. https://edgy.app/top-5-renewable-energy-cities.
3. Jasper Rigter, Deger Saygin, Ghislaine Kieffer. Renewable Energy In Cities. IRENA. October 2016. https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2016/IRENA_Renewable_Energy_in_Cities_2016.pdf.
4. Renewable Energy in cities. International Renewable Energy Agency. https://www.irena.org/publications/2016/Oct/Renewable-Energy-in-Cities. 2016.
5. Sandy Dechert. One Decade Left To Keep Global Warming Below 1.5°C. CleanTechnica. 25 September 2016. https://cleantechnica.com/2016/09/25/1-decade-left-keep-global-warming-1-5c/.
6. Global Warming of 1.5°C. IPCC Special Report. IPCC. https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/.
7. Keeping Global Warming To 1.5 Degrees. Market Forces. https://www.marketforces.org.au/info/key-issues/keeping-global-warming-to-1-5-c/.
8. Bob Berwyn. What does ’12 Years to Act on Climate Change’ (Now 11 Years) Really Mean? Inside Climate News. 27 August 2019. https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27082019/12-years-climate-change-explained-ipcc-science-solutions.
9. “A pathway to ‘net zero’ greenhouse gas emissions”. Friends of the Earth. November 2018. https://cdn.friendsoftheearth.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/Pathway-net-zero-greenhouse-gas-emissions-UK.pdf.
10. European Geosciences Union. “Deadline for climate action: Act strongly before 2035 to keep warming below 2°C”. ScienceDaily. 30 August 2018. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180830084818.htm.
11. Dr. Jim Butler, Director NOAA’s ESLR Lab. From a talk he gave at The Exploratorium, San Francisco. 7 December 2019.
12. Dr. David Holmes. Four Hiroshima bombs a second: How we imagine climate change. Phys Org. 14 August 2013. https://phys.org/news/2013-08-hiroshima-climate.html.
13. Paul Huttner. “Twin Cities scientist: ‘Heat of 5 to 6 Hiroshima atom bombs per second; into earth’s oceans”. MPRnews. 14 January 2020. https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/01/14/twin-cities-scientist-heat-of-5-to-6-hiroshima-atom-bombs-per-second-into-earths-oceans.
14. Ground source heat pumps. Energy Saving Trust. https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/renewable-energy/heat/ground-source-heat-pumps.
15. Tom Gibson. These Exercise Machines Turn Your Sweat Into Electricity. IEEE Spectrum. 21 June 2011. https://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/conservation/these-exercise-machines-turn-your-sweat-into-electricity.
16. Piezoelectric Flooring: Harvesting Energy Using Footsteps. CleanTechies. 8 July 2015. https://cleantechies.com/2015/07/08/piezoelectric-flooring-harvesting-energy-using-footsteps/.
17. “Seawater cools Copenhagen city, cutting emissions by 70%”. Danfoss. 20 February 2019. https://www.danfoss.com/en/service-and-support/case-studies/dds/seawater-cools-copenhagen-city-cutting-emissions-by-70/.
18. Michelle Starr. Scientists Have Figured Out When And How Our Sun Will Die, And It’s Going to Be Epic. Science Alert. 7 May 2018. https://www.sciencealert.com/what-will-happen-after-the-sun-dies-planetary-nebula-solar-system.
19. Alina Bradford. Facts About Tardigrades. LiveScience. 14 July 2017. https://www.livescience.com/57985-tardigrade-facts.html.
20. Tom McKay. Scientists Gauge How Fast Earth’s Ecosystems Are Dying, and It’s Not Looking Good for Us. Mic. 24 June 2015. https://www.mic.com/articles/121209/scientists-gauge-how-fast-earth-s-ecosystems-are-dying-and-it-s-not-looking-good-for-us.