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 173 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
You don’t have to live like a refugee
Reaction Guidelines for People Displaced by Climate Change
This is a resource for dealing with people displaced by climate change. The goal is to have procedures ready on the shelf to be put into place when it’s too late to avoid disaster.
Glossary of terms used
displaced person
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an involuntary migrant
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NGO
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non-governmental organization
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refugee
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an involuntary migrant from another country
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The displaced will come to SF
Across the world, climate-driven migration is toward cities.
What resources are needed for displaced migrants?
- food
- jobs
- water
- cooking utensils and dishes
- hygiene items
- newborn and baby supplies
- clothing and shoes
- school supplies
- toys and books
- heating and cooling
- garbage collection
- schools
- healthcare (physical and mental)
- toilets and showers
- shelter
What resources does SF have for displaced migrants?
- Food — Food banks, pantries, and kitchens are having difficulty meeting the need already here.
- Jobs — San Francisco has jobs, but they are divided between jobs that require highly specialized education and jobs with wages too low to be able to live in San Francisco.
- Water — We’re in a megadrought.
- Cooking Utensils and Dishes — San Francisco has the supplies, and a distribution system for giving away materials to those in need, but inadequate communication of how, where, to whom, and when goods are distributed.
- Hygiene Items — It is ridiculously hard for people in need to get hygiene items in San Francisco now.
- Newborn and Baby Supplies — The majority of distribution of newborn and baby supplies in San Francisco is not done by the city or county, and communication of what, when, for whom these distributions happen is poorly implemented.
- Clothing and Shoes — There are adequate clothing supplies and inadequate shoe supplies, and the distribution of these items depends entirely on private charities and NGOs.
- School Supplies — San Francisco doesn’t have adequate school supplies for students currently attending schools in SF, and the distribution of available supplies is often long after the need arises. Remember, we’re talking about the city with the lowest child population of any major city in the U.S.
- Toys and Books — There is supply available, but the distribution and communication of distribution is entirely done by private charities and NGOs (with occasional seasonal exceptions, mostly from the library and firefighters).
- Heating and Cooling — We don’t have adequate air cooling systems for the population already here should there be heat events. And a chunk of people in SF still heat their houses by wood fires. We have an inadequate number of generators for the population already here.
- Garbage Collection — SF already does a mediocre job collecting refuse from those in non-traditional living situations.
- Schools — SFUSD has space in classrooms for many more children. It does not have money to support them, nor teaching staff to teach them.
- Healthcare — SF already does a mediocre to poor job providing healthcare to marginalized, at-risk, and unhoused populations in the city. Adding more people in need will worsen the current situation.
- Toilets and Showers — SF is disastrously and world-famously short of public toilets already. The same holds true for shower facilities, though this is not as widely publicized.
- Shelter — Nearly 1 in 10 residential units in San Francisco sits empty. There is a plethora of empty office buildings in SF. There is a lot of space available, but no political will to use it.
SF lacks resources for an influx of people displaced by climate change
They will still come.