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 89 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 of the topics for all the strike letters, see this story. Meanwhile…
STRIKE FOR THE PLANET
Because we won’t survive alone.
This week: Sister Communities
You’re past the obvious solutions now, so it’s time for some moon shots. This one seems easy, especially for politicians, and I can’t believe you haven’t done it yet but you haven’t, so here we go: San Francisco needs Sister Communities inside California.
What’s the problem?
Our state’s deep economic split gives the haves billions (or trillions) and the have-nots very very little.1, 2, 3 Combine that with the lack of opportunities in rural areas4, the impossible costs of living in CA’s urban areas5, a rural school-to-opioid pipeline6, and rural anger being funneled into racism and fascism7, and you’ve got a toxic stew, easily exploitable by demagogues and Nationalists. Demagogues and Nationalists are not interested in climate change; they “don’t believe in it” in much the same way they don’t believe in Covid-19.8, 9, 10 But, as has been demonstrated time and time again, beliefs can’t trump reality.11, 12 So we have to get rural Californians in the game if any of us are to survive. Otherwise we’ll be fighting off attempted coup after civil war after terrorist attack in the midst of climate change and we’ll all lose.
How did this happen?
How did the rural areas of the state became so Charlton Heston?13 Rural America was the first (but not the last) place to experience the full brunt of corporate colonialism. Rural America is the test case, the laboratory where corporations discover exactly how to exploit and trash everything for the wealth of the few.14, 15, 16 They do this by:
- pushing systemic racist policies by the USDA that led to the loss of Black, Native, Latinx, and women farmers17
- the abuse of migrant labor18
- the lack of investment in rural education19
- the land-abusing activities of big agriculture20, 21, 22, 23
- the lack of safeguards for those who live and work in rural areas24, 25, 26
- the theft of the public airwaves by right wing media27, 28 and
- encouraging out and out racism.29
How can we fix this?
Solidarity. It’s that simple. And Sister Communities are a way to organize the people against the corporate rapists and win.
What’s a Sister Community then?
A Sister Community is like a Sister City but with real expectations, actionable plans, and teeth. We arrange for trades and favored-nation style agreements between the two entities, and expand on these ties at every opportunity. We listen to each other and we learn. We support each other in order to enlarge our chances of surviving.
WHAT WE HAVE TO OFFER
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WHAT WE NEED
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educational opportunities: summer programs, arts scholarships, college, teacher training (specifically The Exploratorium), on-going career training (specifically for field scientists and medical professionals)
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housing, in the form of retirement communities, places for families who want the advantages of cities without the costs and drawbacks of cities, and affordable living situations
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access to the arts: symphony, opera, ballet, LORT theatres, museums, internationally important dance companies, touring musicians
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connections to nature: camps (education, summer, art, science, etc), working farm stay programs, working farm cooperative housing, working nature preserve cooperatives, locations preserved for seasonal commercial opportunities like the Renn Faire
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tourism — opportunities, including nightlife, and training in the industry
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job opportunities for manual laborers a la the WPA
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urban jobs
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dependable food and water supplies
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people
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political allies at the state level and in case of disaster
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medical expertise and doctors (note: establishing a student loan reduction or forgiveness program for doctors who train in SF but practice for X number of years in one of the Sister Communities would be a win-win-win.)
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clean air — this means the reintroduction of the natural fire cycle, a regrowth of the forest, and an expansion of natural (but indigenous inhabited) landscapes.
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How do we set up Sister Communities?
San Francisco identifies communities with resources we need who have needs we could help meet, and we start talking to them about hooking up. Specifically, we should be looking at a Native community, a majority Latinx farming community, and at least one community in the foothills of or in the Sierras. Such sharing of resources and needs already works in many places in California30, 31, 32; this is just a formalization and expansion for survival purposes.
How does this help SF?
Politically, cities need to help rural areas to gain allies to push for necessary changes at the state level, especially in the state senate. Environmentally, we need a safety net and we don’t have one. Spreading ourselves and our connections out geographically will start building that net.
How does this help with climate change?
Diversity increases our options as the environment changes. The more options, the more likely there will be an option that works in the changed circumstances. Sister Communities will increase our options enormously — they increase our population resources, our expertise, our geographic areas, our access to diverse species, and much more. Just as we have plans for evacuation to neighboring counties in case of a major earthquake, plans that have been worked out and agreed on with those counties, access to Sister Communities allows us room to plan for environmental change.
Who can we contact to set this up?
This is the short list — these national and regional experts should lead you to many more names.
And the Democrats in rural counties who are being passed over and ignored by state politicians, people who are working on environmental projects and community health in the rural counties, the surviving granges (https://www.castategrange.org — why did we ever let this leftist populist organization fall into the hands of the radical right??), rural study and activist groups, up and coming rural students and local politicians, rural arts groups, potential rural medical students and current urban medical students and their schools, potential rural law students and current urban law students and their schools, the teachers unions at both ends, the universities, the California Academy of Sciences, the Exploratorium, the hospitality and tourist industries in both locations (including people interested in getting involved in those), state transit organizations, farmers, Native communities, etc. The list is only limited by your imagination and political savvy.
And, as an added bonus, this helps politically in BIG ways.
By addressing our need for nature and dependence on natural habitat in this way, we will also be fixing the broken political system that made space for the Trumps and the thieves who are destroying the biosphere for short-term (shorter all the time) personal profits.
We have to value the land and water, or we’ll lose them.
And that means we have to value the people who live on the land and help them because this will help us. You can tell something has gone very wrong when students know more about European nations and their capitals than they know about the counties of CA or the towns and cities in their area. We need to value here if we’re going to be able to keep living here. It’s that simple.
And we have to do it NOW!
Because time’s up.33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 In a little over a year and a half, we have lost 10 years time in which to act; our situation now is already what we though the worst case scenario would be in 2030. The U.S. has been out of the Paris Agreement for 63 days, and every day out is making our situation worse. ACT NOW!
FOOTNOTES
1. Erica Hellerstein. “Income inequality is on the rise in California. In some counties, the disparities are extreme”. Cal Matters. 5 March 2020. https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2019/10/income-inequality-is-on-the-rise-in-california-in-some-counties-the-disparities-are-extreme/.
2. Sarah Bohn and Tess Thorman. “Income Inequality in California”. Public Policy Institute of California. January 2020. https://www.ppic.org/publication/income-inequality-in-california/.
3. Carolyn Said. “Hunger rises in Bay Area as pandemic lingers”. San Francisco Chronicle. 15 September 2020. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Hunger-rises-in-Bay-Area-as-pandemic-lingers-15567449.php.
4. Indiana Lee. “The opportunities and challenges faced by youth in rural America”. Voices of Youth: UNICEF. 9 October 2019. https://www.voicesofyouth.org/blog/opportunities-and-challenges-faced-youth-rural-america.
5. Brock Keeling. “Teacher at San Francisco public school ends up homeless due to housing costs”. SF Curbed. 10 May 2017. https://sf.curbed.com/2017/5/10/15612746/sf-math-teacher-housing-homeless.
6. Richard Florida. “The Changing Geography of the Opioid Crisis”. Bloomberg CityLab. 5 December 2019. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-05/how-opioid-deaths-differ-in-rural-and-urban-areas.
7. Ryan Sabalow, Lara Korte, and Jason Pohl. “Rural California is divided, armed for revolt. What’s the matter in the State of Jefferson?” The Sacramento Bee. 26 October 2020. https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/article246652603.html.
8. Anne-Sophie Brändlin. “How right-wing nationalism fuels climate denial”. DW. 19 December 2018. https://www.dw.com/en/how-right-wing-nationalism-fuels-climate-denial/a-46699510.
9. Keith Kahn-Harris. “Denialism: what drives people to reject the truth”. The Guardian. 3 August 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/aug/03/denialism-what-drives-people-to-reject-the-truth.
10. Maurice Mitchell. “From denialism to eco-fascism: The right’s new climate change blame game”. Daily Kos. 20 December 2019. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/12/20/1906987/-From-denialism-to-eco-fascism-The-right-s-new-climate-change-blame-game.
11. Larry Womack. “I grew up in rural, small-town America — and I can tell you the real reason why people love Donald Trump”. Independent. 22 November 2019. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-supporters-california-clinton-fake-news-vote-2020-a9214131.html.
12. Sarah Jacoby. “Some Patients Dying of COVID-19 Still Think It’s Fake, Says a South Dakota Nurse”. SELF. 17 November 2020. https://www.self.com/story/covid-19-patients-dying-still-think-its-fake.
13. Jessica Dawson. “Shall not be infringed: how the NRA used religious language to transform the meaning of the Second Amendment”. ResearchGate. July 2019. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334187127_Shall_not_be_infringed_how_the_NRA_used_religious_language_to_transform_the_meaning_of_the_Second_Amendment.
14. John Ikerd. “Corporate Hog Production: The Colonization of Rural America”. SRA Project. October 2017. https://www.sraproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/hogsummittikerd.pdf.
15. John Ikerd. “Transnational Corporations, Factory Farms and the Economic Colonization of Rural America”. In These Times. 3 August 2017. https://inthesetimes.com/article/rural-america-economic-colonization-corporate-agriculture-exploitation.
16. Sarah Van Gelder. “I Was Wrong About the Rural-Urban Divide”. Yes! 22 February 2018. https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2018/02/22/i-was-wrong-about-the-rural-urban-divide/.
17. Megan Horst. “How Racism Has Shaped the American Farming Landscape”. Eater. 25 January 2019. https://www.eater.com/2019/1/25/18197352/american-farming-racism-us-agriculture-history.
18. Bruce Neuburger. “California’s Migrant Farmworkers”. Monthly Review. 1 May 2019. https://monthlyreview.org/2019/05/01/californias-migrant-farmworkers/.
19. Carolyn Jones, Larry Gordon, Sydney Johnson, Rose Ciotta, Jennifer Molina, Yuxuan Sie, Daniel Willis, Diana Lambert, David Washburn, and Lee Romney. “Rural California: An Education Divide”. EdSource. Accessed 6 January 2021. https://edsource.org/topic/rural-california-an-education-divide.
20. Nancy Fink Huehnergarth. “Big Agriculture Bullies And Lobbies To Keep Americans In The Dark”. Forbes. 5 May 2016. https://www.forbes.com/sites/nancyhuehnergarth/2016/05/05/big-ag-bullies-and-lobbies-to-keep-americans-in-the-dark/?sh=29f24cb6502c.
21. Susan Cosier. “The world needs topsoil to grow 95% of its food - but it’s rapidly disappearing”. The Guardian. 30 May 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/30/topsoil-farming-agriculture-food-toxic-america.
22. Suzanne Goldenberg. “The Central Valley is sinking: drought forces farmers to ponder the abyss”. The Guardian. 28 November 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/28/california-central-valley-sinking-farmers-deepwater-wells.
23. James Cameron and Suzy Amis Cameron. “Animal agriculture is choking the Earth and making us sick. We must act now”. The Guardian. 4 December 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/04/animal-agriculture-choking-earth-making-sick-climate-food-environmental-impact-james-cameron-suzy-amis-cameron.
24. New American Media. “Gaping Holes In Safety Net For California’s Uninsured”. Institute for Rural Studies. 23 march 2015. http://www.cirsinc.org/rural-california-report/entry/gaping-holes-in-safety-net-for-california-s-uninsured.
25. Helena Bottemiller Evich, Ximena Bustillo, and Liz Crampton. “Harvest of shame: Framworkers face coronavirus disaster”. Politico. 8 September 2020. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/08/farmworkers-coronavirus-disaster-409339.
26. “Violence and Abuse in Rural America”. RHI hub. 26 September 2018. https://www.ruralhealthinfo.org/topics/violence-and-abuse.
27. Bill Mann. “Here’s Why the Right Wing Dominates Talk Radio Today”. Huffpost. 25 May 2011. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/heres-why-the-right-wing_b_206444.
28. Brain Stelter. “Sinclair’s new media-bashing promos rankle local anchors”. CNN Business. 7 March 2018. https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/07/media/sinclair-broadcasting-promos-media-bashing/index.html.
29. Matthew Chapman. “How the rise of white nationalism is being shaped by population changes in rural America”. RawStory. 12 September 2019. https://www.rawstory.com/2019/09/how-the-rise-of-white-nationalism-is-being-shaped-by-population-changes-in-rural-america/.
30. Hawk Rosales. “Indigenous Perspectives Are Crucial for Conservation”. Redwoods Magazine. Accessed 6 January 2021. https://www.savetheredwoods.org/redwoods-magazine/indigenous-perspectives-are-crucial-for-conservation/.
31. Leigh Martinez. “Environmentalists, Loggers Team Up To Protect California Parks By Thinning Forests Responsibly”. CBS Sacramento. 29 July 2015. https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2015/07/29/environmentalists-loggers-team-up-to-protect-california-parks-by-thinning-forests-responsibly/.
32. Jennifer Olney. “Environmentalists, loggers may work together to save dying trees in California”. ABC 7 News. 2 September 2016. https://abc7news.com/news/1488062/.
33. 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.
34. 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.
35. 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.
36. 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/.
37. 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.38. John D. Sutter. “Vanishing”. CNN. Accessed 30 June 2020. https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2016/12/specials/vanishing/.
39. 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/.
40. 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/.