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 86 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
You think it’s bad now? You have no idea.
This week’s topic: Science Is Conservative, and That’s Important.
Climate change and extinction are here1
- The extinction rate is at least 1000 times faster now — because of us2
- There’s been an increase in extreme weather events3, 4, 5
- We’re in the first years of a megadrought6, 7
- The ocean is rapidly acidifying8
- The permafrost is rapidly melting 9, 10
- The cryosphere is rapidly vanishing in the Arctic11, Himalayas12, Antarctic13, and Greenland14
- There’ve been massive increases in plastic15 and toxic chemicals16, 17 in the environment
- There’s been an increase in the number of people in desperate circumstances18, 19
- And the 1st pandemic of the Holocene extinction is already underway, with more to follow20, 21
And they’re both getting worse faster than we thought
- We are approaching, are at, or have passed multiple tipping points already.22
- It’s becoming more apparent that carbon neutral won't be enough to stop devastation from climate change23 and that modern human land use is environmentally catastrophic.24, 25, 26
- And, while the scientific models are packed with dire predictions, the models are still more optimistic than what’s actually happening on the planet.27, 28
Why are the scientific models off? Because science is conservative
Not politically conservative, but conservative in the strictest sense of the word: tending or disposed to maintain existing views, or marked by moderation or caution.29
If you think you’ve observed something new or different, science requires you to prove it. You do this by collecting verifiable, repeatable, and observable data to start with. Then you have to analyze the data, and develop predictions from the data that can be tested. Then you do the tests, and encourage as many others as possible to do the tests as well. Only if data, hypotheses, predictions, and testing align is a new idea of how the world works considered potentially scientifically valid. At this point, you are arguing your data and results against the ideas and data and results of others. Arriving at a consensus requires more work and data collection, and better analysis of the results.
So science is conservative; isn’t that a good thing?
Usually, yes. But do you see the issue here? It takes a lot of work, a lot of imagination, experience, ingenuity and perseverance, plus time, money, and access to equipment and supplies to do good science, and then peer review takes more time, intelligence, and diligence. When you’re continually checking methods and analysis in order to exclude error, the going is slow, especially if you’re operating with insufficient resources or in hostile employment or granting situations.30 And, in science if not in politics, the more extraordinary the claim, the more extraordinary the evidence supporting the claim has to be.31 Science is built around repetition and proof, and these take time.
And time is what we don't have.
So what does this mean to us?
- The data is old by the time it’s being analyzed.
- Studies are out-of-date as soon as they’re published.
- Climate change and extinction events are all happening sooner than anticipated in any published predictions or models.
- And the extremes of climate change are already bigger than anticipated in any published predictions or models.
Let’s break all that down. It means that over and over again, the climate change models and our interpretations of those models have proven to be too conservative32, 33 in a political sense of the word: based on incomplete information or analysis, operating in a world that no longer exists, or blind to current reality. The models are downplaying the degree and amount of change that is happening and is being baked into the planetary ecosystem. Yet even the models out there now, the ones that are too out-of-date for current data, are screaming out for action.
And the models are too conservative.
So what do we do?
- We have to assume the worst-case scenarios as our starting points for action. These will still be too conservative, but they’re a better base to work from then optimistic predictions that are wrong.
- We have to stop listening to the companies profiting by the disappearance of species and ecosystem resources to tell us how much is left and what its value is.
- There is no time for wishy-washiness, for ignoring this for whatever shiny object or scary thing crosses your immediate path, or for the scandal de jour. Because this ain’t no disco, and there ain't no time for fooling around.34
How do you turn this into actions that will give SF a chance at survival?
- Eliminate all “natural gas” infrastructure in SF.35
- Make SF run on 100% local, 100% renewable, 100% clean, 100% locally sustainable, carbon neutral or carbon negative energy by 2025.36
- Install a “streets are for people” and eliminate the “streets are for cars” policy framework.37
- Recycle blackwater countywide.38
- Get everyone involved in the project of sustaining and adapting SF to global change.39
- Sequester carbon in SF.40
- Put a progressive Carbon Added Fee on items that swell SF’s carbon footprint.41
- Focus on solving environmental racism and inequalities42 and a lot of other issues will be solved as well.
- Begin the coastal retreats now. Plant the coastal buffer zones.43
- Eliminate light pollution.44
- Increase SF’s albedo.45
- Plant a connected, native urban forest with green pathways for flying animals, insects, nocturnal animals, large predators and scavengers, and people.46
- Require cradle to cradle purchasing.47
- Eliminated all non-recycled plastic use in SF.48
- Recycle everything in SF in SF. There is no “away” where we can dump our waste because there is no waste, only wasted resources.49
- Fund, be on the look out for, and support the science to help with all of this.50
- Use and support the arts to get the messages across in multiple directions. The arts tell us the story of what it means to be alive at this time. Use them; stop ceding the messaging to the climate chaos profiteers.
- Require green building practices, push what is permitted, and stop building for capital instead of for the people.
And more. There is so much SF can and must do. There are 85 weeks of information available to you that focus on SF. There are resources out there, work that’s been done and is being done, models to follow, and no time to waste.
That’s why you can and must act now!
There are 3 weeks left in which to start the necessary big actions if we’re going to survive.51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58 In a little over a year and a half, we have lost 10 years time in which to act. The U.S. has now been out of the Paris Agreement for 42 days, and every day out is making our situation worse. STOP STALLING — ACT NOW!
FOOTNOTES
1. Arwa Mahdawi. “China is scaling up its weather modification programme - here’s why we should be worried”. The Guardian. 15 December 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/15/china-scaling-up-weather-modification-programme-we-should-be-worried.
2. Justin Scuiletti. “Humans increased species extinction rate by 1,000 times, new study says”. PBS News Hour. 29 May 2014. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/animal-extinctions.
3. Drew Kann. “US cities could face nearly 30 times more exposure to extreme heat by 2100 compared to the early 2000s, study finds”. CNN. 18 August 2020. https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/17/weather/extreme-heat-exposure-increase-us-cities-2100/index.html.
4. “Global warming is contributing to extreme weather events”. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Accessed 15 December 2020. https://sites.nationalacademies.org/BasedOnScience/climate-change-global-warming-is-contributing-to-extreme-weather-events/index.htm.
5. European Academies’ Science Advisory Council. “New data confirm increased frequency of extreme weather events”. ScienceDaily. 21 March 2018. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180321130859.htm.
6. Paul Rogers. “Historic ‘megadrought’ underway in California, American West”. Mercury News. 16 April 2020. https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/16/megadrought-underway-in-california-american-west-new-study-finds/.
7. Jeff Berardelli. “Megadrought emerging in western U.S. could be the worst in 1,200 years, study finds”. CBS News. 17 April 2020. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-drought-california-western-united-states-study/.
8. Scottie Andrew. “The Pacific Ocean is so acidic that it’s dissolving Dungeness crabs’ shells”. CNN. 27 January 2020. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/27/us/pacific-ocean-acidification-crabs-dissolving-shells-scn-trnd/index.html.
9. Katie Orlinsky. “The great thaw: global heating upends life on Arctic permafrost - photo essay”. The Guardian. 13 October 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2020/oct/13/the-great-thaw-global-heating-upends-life-on-arctic-permafrost-photo-essay.
10. Stuart Vyse and Dr. Boris Biskaborn. “Permafrost is warming at an alarming rate”. Earth System Knowledge Platform. 7 March 2019. https://www.eskp.de/en/climate-change/permafrost-is-warming-at-an-alarming-rate-9351027/.
11. Lili Pike. “Why the record low Arctic sea ice this October is so alarming”. Vox. 28 October 2020. https://www.vox.com/21536859/arctic-sea-ice-2020-climate-change-alaska-polar-bears-charts.
12. Stephen Leahy. “Himalayan glaciers melting at alarming rate, spy satellites show”. National Geographic. 19 June 2019. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/06/himalayan-glaciers-melting-alarming-rate-spy-satellites-show/.
13. Claire L. Parkinson. “A 40-y record reveals gradual Antarctic sea ice increases followed by decreases at rates far exceeding the rates seen in the Arctic”. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 16 July 2019. https://www.pnas.org/content/116/29/14414.
14. Drew Kann. “Greenland’s ice sheet is melting as fast as at any time in the last 12,000 years, study shows”. CNN. 30 September 2020. https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/30/weather/greenland-ice-sheet-melt-carbon-emissions-climate-change/index.html.
15. John Blackstone. “U.S. polluting ocean with trash at alarming rate”. CBS Evening News. 13 February 2015. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-polluting-ocean-trash-alarming-rate/.
16. Alice Park. “Children Exposed to More Brain-Harming Chemicals Than Ever Before”. Time. 14 February 2014. https://time.com/7930/children-exposed-to-more-brain-harming-chemicals-than-ever-before/.
17. Molly Miller. “Toxic Exposure: Chemicals Are in Our Water, Food, Air and Furniture”. UCSF. 22 June 2017. https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2017/06/407416/toxic-exposure-chemicals-are-our-water-food-air-and-furniture.
18. Fiona Harvey. “World faces worst food crisis for at least 50 years, UN warns”. The Guardian. 9 June 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jun/09/world-faces-worst-food-crisis-50-years-un-coronavirus.
19. Julia Jacobo. “17 countries — home to 25% of the world’s population — facing water crises, organization says”. ABC News. 8 August 2019. https://abcnews.go.com/International/17-countries-home-25-worlds-population-facing-water/story?id=64827506.
20. Doyle Rice. “Scientists are seeing an ‘acceleration of pandemics’: They are looking at climate change ”. USA Today. 10 September 2020. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/09/10/climate-change-covid-19-does-global-warming-fuel-pandemics/5749582002/.
21. Vijay Kolinjivadi. “The coronavirus outbreak is part of the climate change crisis”. Aljazeera. 30 March 2020. https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/3/30/the-coronavirus-outbreak-is-part-of-the-climate-change-crisis/.
22. Henry Fountain. “Climate Change Is Accelerating, Bringing World ‘Dangerously Close’ to Irreversible Change”. New York Times. 4 December 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/04/climate/climate-change-acceleration.html.
23. Emily Pontecorvo. “What if net-zero isn’t enough? Inside the push to ‘restore’ the climate.” Grist. 11 December 2020. https://grist.org/climate/can-we-restore-the-climate-these-young-activists-want-us-to-try/.
24. Marlowe Hood. “Human diet causing ‘catastrophic’ damage to planet: study”. Phys Org. 17 January 2019. https://phys.org/news/2019-01-human-diet-catastrophic-planet.html.
25. Convention to Combat Desertification. “Biodiversity’s Catastrophic Collapse on Land”. The United Nations. 10 September 2020. https://knowledge.unccd.int/publications/biodiversitys-catastrophic-collapse-land.
26. Soumya Sarkar. “Manage land better to prevent catastrophic breakdown”. India Climate Dialogue. 8 August 2019. https://indiaclimatedialogue.net/2019/08/08/manage-land-better-to-prevent-catastrophe/.
27. Michele Berger. “Climate Is Changing Faster Than Ever — And It’s Speeding Up”. The Weather Channel. 10 March 2015. https://weather.com/science/environment/news/climate-change-faster-than-ever-speeding-up.
28. University of Bern. “Climate is warming faster than it has in the last 2,000 years”. Science News. 24 July 2019. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190724131624.htm.
29. “conservative”. Merriam-Webster. Accessed 15 December 2020. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conservative.
30. Mark Quigley, Jeremy Silver, and Timothy Lynch. “Is Donald Trump anti-science? The data says yes”. Phys Org. 29 January 2020. https://phys.org/news/2020-01-donald-trump-anti-science.html.
31. “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. Rational Wiki. Accessed 15 December 2020. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Extraordinary_claims_require_extraordinary_evidence.
32. University of Adelaide. “IPCC is underselling climate change”. Science News. 20 March 2019. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190320102010.htm.
33. Glenn Scherer. “Climate Science Predictions Prove Too Conservative”. Scientific American. 6 December 2012. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-science-predictions-prove-too-conservative/.
34. The Talking Heads. “Life During Wartime”. Genius. Accessed 15 December 2020. https://genius.com/Talking-heads-life-during-wartime-lyrics.
35. Strike letter week 32: CH4.
36. Strike letter week 38: Energy and week 39: Energy details.
37. Strike letter week 7: Transportation, week 15: Environmental justice, and week 29: Transit.
38. Strike letter week 1: Water, week 20: Access to water, week 28: Water recycling, and week 52: Build blackwater recycling.
39. 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.
40. 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.
41. Strike letter Week 61: CAF and Week 62: CAF implementation.
42. Strike letter week 15: Environmental justice, week 23: Examples pt 2, week 58: Restorative Justice, and week 64: Environmental racism.
43. 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.
44. Strike letter week 9: Insects, week 12: Light, week 23: Examples pt 2, and week 44: Insects in SF.
45. Strike letter week 12: Light, and week 22: Examples pt 1.
46. 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.
47. Strike letter week 4: Local recycling, week 31: Plastic, and week 41: Scope of the plastic problem.
48. Strike letter week 4: Local recycling, week 31: Plastic, and week 41: Scope of the plastic problem.
49. Strike letter week 4: Local recycling.
50. 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.
51. 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.
52. 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.
53. 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.
54. 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/.
55. 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.
56. John D. Sutter. “Vanishing”. CNN. Accessed 30 June 2020. https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2016/12/specials/vanishing/.
57. 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/.
58. 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/.
In lieu of images, please go to xkcd and read some science comics.