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 80 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
First deadline hit.
This week’s topic is Will We Always Have Paris?
What is the Paris Agreement?
It’s a set of agreements among nations to hold the global average temperature increase to below 2°C of pre-industrial levels in order to significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change.1 That’s it, that’s the core. Pretty simple, right?
What does that have to do with us in SF?
Hmmm, let’s think about this for a second.
- The Paris Agreement is about saving this planet’s ability to support life.
- San Francisco is on the planet.
- Everyone will have to act if any of us are to have a chance.
That’s why states and cities signed on to the agreement.
California signed. California committed to cutting emissions as much as 28% below 2005 levels by 2020.2 San Francisco agreed to adopt, honor, and uphold the goals of Paris, act to meet the preferred 1.5°C target, create a 21st century clean energy economy, increase investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency, buy and create demand for electric cars and trucks, increase cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, create a clean energy economy, and stand for environmental justice.3
So what does SF have to do now to get there?
- Eliminate or repurpose (such as for electric power lines) the “natural gas” infrastructure in SF.4
- Make SF run on 100% local, 100% renewable, 100% clean, 100% locally sustainable, carbon neutral or carbon negative energy by 2025.5
- Move from a “streets are for cars” to “streets are for people” policy framework.6
- Recycle blackwater countywide.7
- Get everyone involved in the project of sustaining and adapting SF to global change.8
- Sequester carbon in SF.9
- Put a progressive Carbon Added Fee on items that add to SF’s carbon footprint.10
- Develop inclusive leadership and policy formation practices.11
- Focus on solving environmental racism and inequalities.12
- Begin the coastal retreats now. Plant the coastal buffer zones.13
- Eliminate light pollution.14
- Increase SF’s albedo.15
- Plant a connected, native urban forest with green pathways for flying animals, insects, nocturnal animals, large predators, scavengers, and people.16
- Eliminate all non-recycled plastic use in SF.17
- Recycle everything in SF in SF.18
- Fund, be on the look out for, and support the science to help with all of this.19
- Use and support the arts to get messages across in multiple directions. The arts tell the story of what it means to be alive at this time. Use them.20
- Require green building practices, greatly expand permitted green building practices, and stop building for capital instead of for people.21
Remember, no matter how much these projects cost, they are cheaper by far than not acting.22 Learn the lessons of Covid-19; it is the harbinger of the planet-wide catastrophes coming if you don't act now.23, 24
This is why deadlines are bad things to ignore.
There are, at most, 9 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 act. The Guardian countdown has hit 0 days left to save the earth; it's here.33 The time of dithering has to be over or we’re done. At this, the last possible moment, will you finally start fighting for us?
FOOTNOTES
1. Article 2, section 1 of the Paris Agreement. 2015. United Nations. https://unfccc.int/files/essential_background/convention/application/pdf/english_paris_agreement.pdf.
2. Zöe Schlanger. “All of the US cities, counties, states, university presidents, companies, and investors defying Trump’s stance on Paris”. Quartz. 5 June 2017. https://qz.com/999142/paris-agreement-all-of-the-us-cities-counties-states-universities-companies-and-investors-defying-trumps-stance-on-climate-deal/.
3. Climate Mayors. “407 US Climate Mayors commit to adopt, honor and uphold Paris Climate Agreement goals”. Climate Mayors. 1 June 2017. https://medium.com/@ClimateMayors/climate-mayors-commit-to-adopt-honor-and-uphold-paris-climate-agreement-goals-ba566e260097.
4. Strike letter week 32: CH4.
5. Strike letter week 38: Energy and week 39: Energy details, week 68: Electrification.
6. Strike letter week 7: Transportation, week 15: Environmental justice, week 29: Transit, week 63: Carmageddon, and week 69: Streets of San Francisco.
7. Strike letter week 1: Water, week 20: Access to water, week 28: Water recycling, and week 52: Build blackwater recycling.
8. Strike letter week 2: Ideas, week 14: Self-assessment, week 15: Environmental justice, week 40: Climate emergency, week 54: Taking action fast, and week 58: Restorative Justice.
9. Strike letter week 3: Carbon sequestration, week 6: Planting, week 16: The ocean, week 27: Trees, week 35: CO2 pt 2, and week 36: CO2 pt 3.
10. Strike letter Week 61: CAF and Week 62: CAF implementation.
11. Strike letter Week 2: Ideas, Week 15: Environmental justice, Week 21: Priorities, Week 48: Green New Deal, Week 49: Basic tenents, Week 54: Taking action fast, Week 55: How SF is hurt by global changes, Week 58: Restorative Justice, Week 60: Scope, Week 64: Environmental racism, and Week 65: How to take action.
12. Strike letter week 15: Environmental justice, week 23: Examples pt 2, week 58: Restorative Justice, and week 64: Environmental racism.
13. Strike letter week 5: Elevation, week 6: Planting, week 11: The coasts, week 13: Early financial risks, week 16: The ocean, week 18: Now or never, week 21: Priorities, and week 22: Examples pt 1.
14. Strike letter week 9: Insects, week 12: Light, week 23: Examples pt 2, and week 44: Insects in SF.
15. Strike letter week 12: Light, and week 22: Examples pt 1.
16. Strike letter week 6: Planting, week 9: Insects, week 22: Examples pt 1, week 27: Trees, week 44: Insects in SF, and week 45: Bio highways.
17. Strike letter week 4: Local recycling, week 31: Plastic, and week 41: Scope of the plastic problem.
18. Strike letter week 4: Local recycling.
19. Strike letter week 10 Money (divest-invest), week 13: Early financial risks, week 19: Municipal bonds, week 23: Examples pt 2, and week 24: Science.
20. Strike letter week 67: Art.
21. Strike letter week 76: Green Building Practices.
22. Dana Nuccitelli. “Climate dollars and sense - preventing global warming is the cheap option”. The Guardian. 22 April 2014. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/apr/22/preventing-global-warming-cheaper-than-adapting. This isn’t new news!
23. Thomas J. Bollyky and Stewart M. Patrick. “Op-Ed: Time to prepare for an even more deadly pandemic”. Los Angeles Times. 28 October 2020. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-10-28/coronavirus-pandemic-world-health-preparedness.
24. “‘Staggering’ rise in climate emergencies in last 20 years, new disaster research shows”. UN News. 12 October 2020. https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/10/1075142.
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 29 July 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/series/climate-countdown.