STRIKE FOR THE PLANET
This week’s topic is FIDDLING WHILE HOME BURNS.
Our Biosphere1 Is Dying.
Just a few recent examples in the news:
- CO2 — The Covid-19 slowdown has resulted in a 5.5% reduction in CO2 output. We need to be reducing CO2 by 7.6% every year2 to survive.
- Water — The West Coast is now in the first years of a megadrought that will last for decades.3
- Terrestrial Life — In this decade, we will see sudden and massive ecosystem collapse (think sprinting off a cliff, not walking down a gentle slope).4
- Weather — The ocean is dangerously hot, and is fueling increasingly massive hurricanes and fire events.5
- The Ocean — The ocean is dying.6, 7
- Rate Of Change — The speed of climate change is faster than at any point in the last 2000 years and the rate of climate change is increasing.8
Are You Waiting For “This Crisis To Pass Before Tackling Climate Change”?
This crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, is a result of human-caused climate change and human-caused mass extinction.9 We created this pandemic through our rape of the biosphere, and we’re primed to start many more, even worse pandemics by pursuing “business as usual.”
Are You Planning To Return To “Business As Usual” After This is Over?
Business as usual is destroying the ability of the planet to support life.10, 11, 12, 13, 14
But San Francisco Does It Right.
Do we? How are we any different than LA? They killed Owen’s Valley15 but we murdered Hetch Hetchy16, 17, 18, and neither city has made restitution or reparations. And those projects, supposedly put in place to protect SF and LA, actually hurt both locations much more in the long-run.19, 20, 21 Nature turns out to have developed a better system for water and resource distribution than capitalists did. But that was all a long time ago, you say?
Let’s Look At What You Are Doing To San Francisco Now.
- You are selling out the bay and delta, and destroying the hydrosphere of northern California.22, 23, 24, 25
- You are using COVID-19 to undercut environmental review, CEQA, and SER.26
- You are backtracking on the few environmental goals you’ve actually accomplished.27, 28
- You are building for businesses, not people.29, 30, 31, 32
- You’ve actually increased environmental racism in SF.33, 34, 35
- You keep pushing for “growth” at all costs, though doing so is at the expense of the planet’s life support system.36
Don’t think Before Covid was normal, sustainable, or desirable when it was none of those things.
Change NOW.
You have no political future if there is no future. We’re at do or die. It’s already started. So act! Stop fiddling while home burns.
And while we’re at it, build our vitally needed:
- Blackwater recycling,
- SF’s native tree urban forest,
- All electric and clean energy transportation,
- No-plastics SF,
- All local carbon-neutral or carbon-negative energy, and
- A resilient and self-sufficient SF.
I am now into my 2nd year of striking and there isn’t even a full year left to us to act. We only have 35 weeks37, 38 in which to take substantial action! Please, DO SOMETHING! Now!
FOOTNOTES
1. The Biosphere is the zone of life on earth, the sum of all ecosystems on the planet. It is the global ecological system integrating all life and life’s interactions with the lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and (rapidly diminishing) cryosphere.
2. Shannon Osaka. “The world is on lockdown. So where are all the carbon emissions coming from?” Grist. 27 April 2020. https://grist.org/climate/the-world-is-on-lockdown-so-where-are-all-the-carbon-emissions-coming-from/.
3. Doyle Rice. “‘Megadrought’ emerging in the western US might be worse than any in 1,200 years”. USA Today. 16 April 2020. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/04/16/drought-worst-western-megadrought-here-study-says/5145929002/.
4. Catrin Einhorn. “Wildlife Collapse From Climate Change Is Predicted to Hit Suddenly and Sooner”. New York Times. 15 April 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/15/climate/wildlife-population-collapse-climate-change.html.
5. Brian K Sullivan. “Warmest Oceans on Record Adds to Hurricanes, Wildfires Risks”. Bloomberg Green. 18 April 2020. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-18/warmest-oceans-on-record-could-set-off-a-year-of-extreme-weather.
6. Kendall R. Jones, Carissa J. Klein, Benjamin S. Halpern, Alan M. Friedlander, Oscar Venter, Hedley Grantham, Caitlin D. Kuempel, Nicole Shumway, Hugh P. Possingham, and James E.m. Watson. “The Location and Protection Status of Earth’s Diminishing Marine Wilderness”. Current Biology, Volume 28, Issue 15. 6 August 2018. https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(18)30772-3.
7. “Kelp Collapse in Northern California Waters Has Far-Reaching Impact”. PEW. 22 April 2020. https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2020/04/22/kelp-collapse-in-northern-california-waters-has-far-reaching-impact.
8. Rafi Letzter. “Today’s Climate Change Is Worse Than Anything Earth Has Experienced in the Past 2,000 Years”. LiveScience. 25 July 2019. https://www.livescience.com/66027-climate-change-different.html.
9. Damian Carrington. “Halt destruction of nature or suffer even worse pandemics, say world’s top scientists”. The Guardian. 27 April 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/27/halt-destruction-nature-worse-pandemics-top-scientists.
10. Oliver Milman. “We’re Destroying the Planet in Ways That Are Even Worse Than Global Warming”. Mother Jones. 16 January 2015. https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/01/humans-destorying-planet-earth/.
11. Eugene Robinson. “We’re killing off our planet and our enlightenment could come too late”. The Washington Post. 6 May 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com.
12. Patrick Collinson. “After coronavirus: ‘We can’t go back to business as usual’”. The Guardian. 4 April 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/apr/04/coronavirus-business-finance-work-property.
13. Sally Uren. “Business as usual is not the answer”. The Guardian. 5 November 2010. https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/blog/sustainable-business-not-answer.
14. Yves Engler. “Big Oil, Auto Industries Conspire to Destroy Liveability of Planet”. GlobalResearch. 22 December 2018. https://www.globalresearch.ca/big-oil-auto-industries-conspire-to-destroy-liveability-of-planet/5663808.
15. Louis Sahagun. “L.A. took their water and land a century ago. Now the Owens Valley is fighting back”. Los Angeles Times. 13 July 2017. https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-owens-valley-eminent-domain-20170712-story.html.
16. Robert Binnewies, B.J. Griffin, and David Mihalic. “Hetch Hetchy: Congress should undo the destructive Raker Act”. The Mercury News. 10 December 2013. https://www.mercurynews.com/2013/12/10/hetch-hetchy-congress-should-undo-the-destructive-raker-act/.
17. “Giving a Dam: Congress Debates Hetch Hetchy”. History Matters. Accessed 29 April 2020. http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5721/.
18. Bruce Pierini. “How Did the Hetch Hetchy Project Impact Native Americans?” Sierra College Press, vol.6 no. 1. 2015. https://www.sierracollege.edu/ejournals/jsnhb/v6n1/pierini.html.
19. Andrew Gomez, Alex Gonzalez, Tessa Nath, and Jasmine Rodriguez. “Owens Valley as an Environmental Hazard”. Los Angeles Aqueduct Digital Platform. 1 October 2014. http://digital.library.ucla.edu/aqueduct/owens-valley-environmental-hazard.
20. Kirk Siegler. “Owens Valley Salty As Los Angeles Water Battle Flows Into Court”. NPR. 11 March 2013. https://www.npr.org/2013/03/11/173463688/owens-valley-salty-as-los-angeles-water-battle-flows-into-court.
21. Alison Hawkes. “Can the Bay Area grow in population and be sustainable?” Bay Nature. 21 June 2012. https://baynature.org/article/can-the-bay-area-grow-in-population-and-be-sustainable/.
22. Jimmy Tobias. “The Extinction Crisis Devastating San Francisco Bay”. The Nation. 21 April 2020. https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/extinction-san-francisco-bay/.
23. “Editorial: Newsom on wrong side of environmental bill”. San Francisco Chronicle. 16 September 2019. https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editorial-Newsom-on-wrong-side-of-environmental-14444510.php.
24. Kurtis Alexander. “Plan to revive rivers pits SF against California”. San Francisco Chronicle. 14 October 2018. https://www.sfchronicle.com/science/article/Plan-to-revive-rivers-pits-SF-against-California-13305272.php.
25. “Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta”. Water Education Foundation. Accessed 29 April 2020. https://www.watereducation.org/aquapedia/sacramento-san-joaquin-delta.
26. Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, D4wardSF, SF Ocean Edge, and other groups and individuals are strongly protesting the Planning Commission and Historic Preservation Commission plan to limit or eliminate public notice, public hearings, and public input, due to the pandemic.
27. Mike Moffitt. “SF outlaws reusable bags, which the city once championed”. SF GATE. 3 April 2020. https://www.sfgate.com/living-in-sf/article/SF-outlaws-reusable-bags-which-the-city-once-15178185.php. NOTE: There is no science to support this. The study that was done indicates that plastic is a much friendlier surface for viral survival than cloth.
28. Associated Press. “California cities want transparency rules waived in pandemic”. FOX 40. 1 April 2020. https://fox40.com/news/california-connection/california-cities-want-transparency-rules-waived-in-pandemic/.
29. Michelle Klug. “The Problem with Building Up in San Francisco”. Medium. 17 May 2016. https://thebolditalic.com/the-problem-with-building-up-in-san-francisco-eb3b0e087fa8.
30. Adam Brinklow. “SF’s chief building inspector named in fraud scandal”. Curbed. 11 March 2020. https://sf.curbed.com/2020/3/11/21174475/tom-hui-fraud-scandal-555-fulton-san-francisco.
31. Roland Li. “San Francisco passes New York to become world’s costliest place to build”. San Francisco Chronicle. 11 April 2019. https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/San-Francisco-passes-New-York-to-become-world-s-13760541.php.
32. Andy Bosselman. “It All Adds Up: The Growing Costs That Prevent New Housing in California”. SPUR. 9 May 2018. https://www.spur.org/news/2018-05-09/it-all-adds-growing-costs-prevent-new-housing-california.
33. Carol Harvey. “Despite coronavirus pandemic, Treasure Island cleanup and redevelopment construction continues to raise toxic dust”. SF BayView. 4 April 2020. https://sfbayview.com/2020/04/despite-coronavirus-pandemic-treasure-island-cleanup-and-redevelopment-construction-continues-to-raise-toxic-dust/.
34. Sabrina Hall, Renay Jenkins, Leaotis Martin, Bradley Angel, and Dalila Adofo. “Earth Day appeal to San Francisco Mayor London Breed and the Board of Supervisors: Protect the health and environment of Bayview Hunters Point”. SF BayView. 23 April 2020. https://sfbayview.com/2020/04/earth-day-appeal-to-san-francisco-mayor-london-breed-and-the-board-of-supervisors-protect-the-health-and-environment-of-bayview-hunters-point/.
35. Carol Harvey. “A call for justice for the real victims in the Tetra Tech scandal: taxpayers and sick Treasure Island and Hunters Point residents”. SF BayView. 15 April 2018. https://sfbayview.com/2018/04/a-call-for-justice-for-the-real-victims-in-the-tetra-tech-scandal-taxpayers-and-sick-treasure-island-and-hunters-point-residents/.
36. Look at the construction going on downtown.
37. See the Action Timeline in the report in “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.
38. Paula Murray. “We’ve 10 years to save the seas or life on earth will become impossible”. Express. 23 December 2018. https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1062990/environment-plastic-pollution-Sir-David-Attenborough-seas-earth.