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 81 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
Because energy is all that matters1
This week’s topic is Energy, It’s All About Energy.
Energy?
Yeah, energy. Without it, SF dies fast. With it, we can maybe survive the harrowing to come.
But we’re fine on energy, you say. Really? Currently we’re tied to PG&E’s debts, criminal behavior, and climate change malpractice. PG&E equipment and poor servicing frequently cause fires and explosions in San Francisco that kill, maim, and knock out power for thousands of people at a time.2, 3
It’s insane to rely on PG&E for our very survival.4, 5
But why talk about energy now?
You know how Covid-19 started out with only a few cases and then more and then there were a lot and then there was an avalanche? That’s what’s happening now with climate change and we are about to descend into avalanche territory.
For example, and this is just one example of many, the oceans are heating up.6, 7 In fact, they’ve become hot enough that ocean methane clathrates, also known as methane ice, are melting.8 We didn’t even know this was possible, but it’s happening now. When the clathrates melt, they release their CH4 into the air. Methane is an insanely potent greenhouse gas and this ice source has been called the sleeping giant of the carbon cycle because we haven’t modeled it in because we didn’t think it could happen. And that’s just ONE of the many climate change situations that are rapidly deteriorating.
So what can we in San Francisco do about it?
Dump PG&E and install public power, at long last. PG&E is vile, and their energy mix hides all kinds of nastiness.9 You’ve put off doing this long enough.10, 11 And we cannot afford to wait for “better times” to institute public power, because any hope of better times absolutely depends on you finally taking the necessary environmental actions now, starting with public power.
Do you wanna govern, or are you only interested in angling for “higher” political office? Because if you care about San Francisco, if you want to serve the public, then do it — now! Local control of our resources makes us more resilient.12 SF has declared a state of climate emergency13 and has signed on to the Paris Agreement actions.14 So act! It is the right choice for San Francisco, if you care about San Francisco at all.
How?
Yeah, so lots of other municipalities have public power or have moved to public power. There are examples galore in CA, in the US, and worldwide. Locations in CA have had public power for over 100 years. The legislative language, insurance policies, municipal bond language, and changes of control have all been written out and enacted in places small and large many, many times already.15, 16 No one is asking you to invent the wheel.
PG&E doesn't want to give up the local grid? Too bad. Murderers don’t want to give up their guns, dictators don’t want to give up their loot, and con artists don’t want to give up their scams.
Okay, but what’s in it for SF?
- A healthier planet17
- Resiliency18
- A huge reduction in waste (heat, lines, etc.)19
- Reduced fire danger20
- Expertise available for when problems arise (as they do and increasingly will)21
- Investing our money in our city
- Easier and faster innovation (solar, wind, tidal, etc.)
Energy and water — if we don’t have those the city is dead, your political careers are over, our civilization dies, and we’re all climate migrants and refugees. Pretty simple. Check out the Anasazi if you want more details.22, 23
So act now!
There are, at most, 8 weeks left in which to start the necessary big actions if we’re going to survive.24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 In a little over a year, we have lost 10 years time in which to act. The U.S. has now been out of the Paris Agreement for 7 days, and every day out is making our situation worse. You must act now.
FOOTNOTES
1. Did you spot the physics pun? Need a hint? “Einstein”.
2. Jay Barmann. “PG&E Equipment Fire Causes Blackout In Hayes Valley and Haight, Shuts Down Ballet”. SFIST. 13 February 2020. https://sfist.com/2020/02/13/pg-e-equipment-fire-causes-blackout-in-haight-hayes-valley-shuts-down-ballet/.
3. Chelsea Shannon. “The history of PG&E’s problems”. KXTV. Accessed 11 November 2020. https://www.abc10.com/article/news/investigations/the-history-of-pges-problems/103-b7badd6e-8eea-4ae3-a935-8628ba98b87e.
4. Joel Rosenblatt. “PG&E’s Removal of Fire Evidence Draws Warning From Federal Judge”. Bloomberg. 6 November 2020. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-07/pg-e-s-removal-of-fire-evidence-draws-warning-from-federal-judge.
5. J. D. Morris. “Zogg Fire investigation puts PG&E under microscope again”. San Francisco Chronicle. 7 November 2020. https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Zogg-Fire-investigation-puts-PG-E-under-15709194.php.
6. Ivana Kottasová. “Oceans are warming at the same rate as if five Hiroshima bombs were dropped in every second”. CNN. 13 January 2020. https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/13/world/climate-change-oceans-heat-intl/index.html.
7. Chelsea Harvey. “Oceans Are Warming Faster Than Predicted”. Scientific American. 11 January 2019. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/oceans-are-warming-faster-than-predicted/.
8. Jonathan Watts. “Arctic methane deposits ‘starting to release’, scientists say”. The Guardian. 27 October 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/oct/27/sleeping-giant-arctic-methane-deposits-starting-to-release-scientists-find.
9. Such as nuclear (24%), methane (17%), “unspecified” which usually means coal or oil from out of state (14%), and large hydro with all the environmental devastation that causes. https://www.pge.com/pge_global/local/assets/data/en-us/your-account/your-bill/understand-your-bill/bill-inserts/2017/november/power-content.pdf.
10. Alexander Sammon. “San Francisco Makes a Charge Toward Public Power”. The American Prospect. 10 September 2019. https://prospect.org/environment/san-francisco-makes-charge-toward-public-power/.
11. Paul Ciampoli. “San Francisco launches campaign tied to public power effort”. American Public Power Association. 14 February 2020. https://www.publicpower.org/periodical/article/san-francisco-launches-campaign-tied-public-power-effort.
12. See Strike letter week 42: Resilience and self-sufficiency.
13. “USA: San Francisco officially declares a climate emergency”. Climate Emergency Declaration. 18 March 2019. https://climateemergencydeclaration.org/san-francisco-declares-a-climate-emergency/.
14. Max Greenwood. “20 states, 50 cities sign pledge to abide by Paris agreement even if US withdraws”. The Hill. 11 November 2017. https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/359910-20-states-50-cities-sign-pledge-to-abide-by-paris-agreement-even-if.
15. “Public Power in California”. American Public Power Association. Accessed 11 November 2020. https://www.publicpower.org/public-power-california.
16. “Public Power”. American Public Power Association. Accessed 11 November 2020. https://www.publicpower.org/public-power.
17. Greta Moran. “Publicly Owned Utilities Could Help Fight the Climate Crisis”. Teen Vogue. 25 October 2019. https://www.teenvogue.com/story/public-utilities-energy-grid.
18. “Benefits of Public Power”. Public Power for Your Community. Accessed 11 November 2020. https://www.publicpower.org/system/files/documents/municipalization-benefits_of_public_power.pdf.
19. Jordan Wirfs-Brock. “Lost in Transmission: How Much Electricity Disappears Between A Power Plant And Your Plug?” Inside Energy. 6 November 2015. http://insideenergy.org/2015/11/06/lost-in-transmission-how-much-electricity-disappears-between-a-power-plant-and-your-plug/.
20. “Publicly Owned Utility and Electrical Cooperative Wildfire Mitigation Plans”. California Public Utilities Commission. Accessed 11 November 2020. https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/wsab/POUandCoopWMPs/.
21. Steve Collier. “Top 10 Challenges for Electric Distribution Utilities”. Linkedin. 30 June 2015. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/top-10-challenges-electric-distribution-utilities-steven-collier.
22. David Labrador. “Climate Changes Coincide with Cultural Shifts in Ancient American Southwest”. Scientific American. 5 October 2001. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-changes-coincide/.
23. George Johnson. “Vanished: A Pueblo Mystery”. The New York Times. 8 April 2008. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/science/08anasazi.html.
24. 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.
25. 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.
26. 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.
27. 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/.
28. 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.
29. John D. Sutter. “Vanishing”. CNN. Accessed 30 June 2020. https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2016/12/specials/vanishing/.
30. 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/.
31. 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/.