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 77 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. Meanwhile…
STRIKE FOR THE PLANET
Act now! Two for the price of one!
This week’s topic is Bargain Hunting.
You have to act now.
Why? Let me count the ways, using headlines. To get the full horror, read the cited articles.
- The Arctic is in a death spiral.1
- A fifth of countries are at risk of ecosystem collapse.2
- We will see oceans without fish by 2048.3
- The mass extinction event is accelerating.4
- The world is burning.5, 6, 7
- The Arctic permafrost is melting 70 years sooner than expected.8
- All coral reefs could be dead within 80 years.9
- And climate change is accelerating.10
There’s so much more but, in summary, it’s all getting worse way faster than predicted.
Because you’ve waited so long to act, fixes can be neither gradual nor cheap.
Remember the shop triangle from week 74: Fast, cheap, good — you only get 2 out of 3? Through inaction and inadequate measures, you’ve already delayed so long that the only time option available is “fast”. Because we have so little time, we can’t afford to screw up on anything, so you have to pick “good”. Two out of three means “cheap” is not on the table.
So how can you convince people to pay what has to be paid for the actions we need to take in order to survive? How can you, finally, act?
It’s time to look for bargain “Two For The Price Of One” actions!
In fact, why be content with two for the price of one? Many of the things you can and must do are three, four, or more for the price of one! What are these amazing deals, you ask?
- Blackwater recycling — It substantially lowers our water import needs and increases our bio resilience while reducing our energy use, increasing habitat conservation, and producing locally made fertilizer that we can both use in SF and sell to CA farmers.11, 12
- Plant a native urban forest — This reduces our CO2 output, cleans our air, provides vitally needed shade to reduce both heat illnesses and environmental injustice, stores carbon, provides habitat to the native animals and insects that increase our bio resilience, and increases our water storage capabilities and local rainfall potential.13
- Raise our albedo — This amazing and relatively low-cost action reduces the urban heat island effect, provides the planet with a slight offset to melting glaciers, lowers the need for night lighting, saves energy, and substantially reduces environmental injustice by lowering temperatures in redlined areas of the city.14, 15, 16, 17
- Electrify everything — Doing this reduces indoor air pollution, thus lowering asthma rates and lung impacts on communities already hard-hit by environmental racism caused by car exhaust exposure; allows us to buy only from green, renewable energy sources; encourages us to produce energy locally; and promotes reduction of environmental injustices.18, 19
- Get rid of plastics — This little number reduces the biologically harmful-to-deadly impacts of plastic exposure at every level from the macro to the nano, reduces the overall amount of plastic in our environment, promotes SF as a center of plastic-free innovation and development, puts the onus for action on manufacturers who are better able to impact overall plastic output than consumers, removes some of the unwarranted power currently wielded by the plastic and fossil fuel industries, and substantially reduces city and county liability for plastic’s impacts.20
- Get cars off the roads — There are sooooo many wins from this action! Getting cars off the roads reduces their ability to kill and maim at absurd levels; make most criminal activities easier to accomplish, including domestic terrorism; promote fossil fuel use and waste; destroy neighborhoods; cause substantial amounts of noise pollution; destroy transit; and promote long commutes, income inequality, and environmental injustice.21
- Transit first, last, and always — While this little beauty may seem in bad shape right now, transit is what makes cities work, is easily electrifiable (in fact, SF is well on its way to achieving this goal), and can reduce environmental and income inequalities (see the prior bullet for more on how); as a bonus, by throwing everything we’ve got at transit we’ll be learning how to do it right before the next pandemic as pandemics will be a lot more common22(though a robust, native forest ecosystem in SF will help protect us from future pandemic exposure for a win/win/win!)23 Go transit!
- 100% clean, renewable energy — The title kind of says it all here. Focusing on non-extractive energy sources means more, new, and better jobs; substantial reductions in greenhouse gases; more local production and control of energy; less waste; and a reduction in environmental injustice and inequality.24
Act now! This is a VERY limited time offer!
We have 12 weeks left in which to start the necessary big actions if we’re going to survive.25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 In a little over a year, we have lost 10 years time in which to do something. The Guardian climate countdown gives us 21 days to save the earth.33
Hurry! Offer expires soon!
FOOTNOTES
1. Gloria Dickie. “The Arctic is in a death spiral. How much longer will it exist?” The Guardian. 13 October 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2020/oct/13/arctic-ice-melting-climate-change-global-warming.
2. Damian Carrington. “Fifth of countries at risk of ecosystem collapse, analysis finds”. The Guardian. 12 October 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/12/fifth-of-nations-at-risk-of-ecosystem-collapse-analysis-finds.
3. David Marinelli. “Oceans without fish by 2048”. SaveEarth.World. 29 March 2018. https://www.davidmarinelli.net/blog/oceans-without-fish-by-2048/.
4. Chris Melore. “Biologists say mass extinction event is accelerating: More than 500 species could disappear by 2040”. Study Finds. 26 June 2020. https://www.studyfinds.org/biologists-say-mass-extinction-event-is-accelerating-more-than-500-species-could-disappear-by-2040/.
5. Eugene Robinson. “The world is burning and drowning. We have to vote for the planet’s future”. The Washington Post. 14 September 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-world-is-burning-and-drowning-we-have-to-vote-for-the-planets-future/2020/09/14/d3ecc61a-f6b7-11ea-a275-1a2c2d36e1f1_story.html.
6. “The World Ablaze: Why Our Forests Are Burning”. Rainforest Alliance. 21 October 2019. https://www.rainforest-alliance.org/articles/why-our-forests-are-burning.
7. Denise Balkissoon. “Climate change is here, and the world is burning”. The Globe and Mail. 2 August 2018. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-climate-change-is-here-and-the-world-is-burning/.
8. Jan Wesner Childs. “Arctic Permafrost Melting 70 Years Sooner Than Expected, Study Finds”. The Weather Channel. 14 June 2019. https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2019-06-14-permafrost-melting-sooner.
9. Caroline Delbert. “All Coral Reefs Could Be Dead Within 80 Years”. Popular Mechanics. 20 February 2020. https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a31024955/coral-reef-restoration-sites-climate-change/.
10. Pushp Bajaj. “Climate change is accelerating, says another UN report. Here’s why”. The Pring. 5 April 2019. https://theprint.in/science/climate-change-is-accelerating-says-another-un-report-heres-why/216935/.
11. “Blackwater Recycling System”. Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Accessed 14 October 2020. https://wp.wpi.edu/capetown/projects/p2009/gardens/accomplishments/composting-options-for-the-proposed-sanitation-facility/black-water-recycling-system/
12. See Strike letters for weeks 20, 23, 28, 46, 48, 52, 57, and 59.
13. See Strike letters for weeks 3, 6, 9, 22, 27, 44, 45, 48, 58, 59, 64, and 72
14. Hashem Akbari, H Damon Matthews, and Donny Seto. “The long-term effect of increasing the albedo of urban areas”. Environmental Research Letters. 12 April 2012. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/7/2/024004.
15. Farhad Reza, Audrey Seals, Brandon Strolh, Justin Stiles, Kanok Boriboonsomsin, and Naomi Schmidt. “Final Report: High Albedo and Environment-Friendly Concrete for Smart Growth and Sustainable Development”. US Environmental Protection Agency. 30 September 2006. https://cfpub.epa.gov/ncer_abstracts/index.cfm/fuseaction/display.highlight/abstract/7791/report/F.
16. Jude Lieber. “The suburban Ecologist, Part I: Albedo”. Jude Lieber. 24 July 2017. https://judelieber.wordpress.com/2017/07/24/the-suburban-ecologist-part-i-albedo/.
17. See Strike letters for weeks 12, 15, 22, 23, 58, 64, 72, and 76.
18. Joe Wachunas. “Equitable Electrification”. CleanTechnica. 9 October 2020. https://cleantechnica.com/2020/10/09/equitable-electrification/.
19. See Strike letters for weeks 7, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 68, and 76.
20. See Strike letters for weeks 10, 22, 31, 41, 48, 73, and 76.
21. See Strike letters for weeks 7, 15, 23, 29, 34, 35, 36, 45, 58, 63, 64, 68, and 69. And, on a personal note, I’d be more than happy to describe in detail the three bike wrecks I’ve been in in SF, and how all three were caused by cars and car supremacy.
22. Prashasti Awasthi. “More pandemics will happen due to climate change: Experts”. Business Line. 11 September 2020. https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/world/more-pandemics-will-happen-due-to-climate-change-experts/article32578503.ece.
23. See Strike letters for weeks 7, 23, 29, 42, 48, 50, 63, 68, and 69.
24. See Strike letters for weeks 15, 23, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 42, 48, 49, 58, 61, 62, 64, 68, 71, and 76. Really, you should just reread all the strike letters.
25. 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.
26. 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.
27. 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.
28. 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/.
29. 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.
30. John D. Sutter. “Vanishing”. CNN. Accessed 30 June 2020. https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2016/12/specials/vanishing/.
31. 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/.
32. 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/.
33. “Climate countdown”. The Guardian. Accessed most recently 7 October 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/series/climate-countdown.