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 175 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
Is San Francisco ready for disasters?
Reaction Guidelines: a Mid-list Summary
This is a summary of the Reaction Guidelines to date, guidelines developed for when it’s too late for San Francisco to avoid disaster.
Disaster situations that will hit/are hitting San Francisco include:
- water
- energy
- food
- heat
- shade
- die-offs
- refugees
- storms and flooding
- sea level rise
- saltwater intrusion
- fires
- retreat from the coasts
- health
- communication
- transportation
These situations all need SF-specific Reaction Guidelines in order to work in SF.
You now have SF-specific Reaction Guidelines for
- water, in three parts: sewage, gray water, and potable water
- energy: for both immediate and long-term needs
- flooding due to both extreme precipitation and sea level rise
- heat
- internally displaced and refugee populations, and
- communications.
In the next few weeks you will get SF-specific Reaction Guidelines for:
Food, shade, die-offs, saltwater intrusion, fires, coastal retreat, health, and transportation.
San Francisco’s current preparedness stands thus:
BLACKWATER
SF‘s sewage systems require lots of water, water that no longer is available in CA. An enormous amount can be done to better this situation and recycle both the water and nutrients in this resource now being dumped, but SF is doing none of it. F
GRAY WATER
SF could be using 100% of our gray water. There are some political rumblings about acting on this issue, but very very little is in place so far. D
POTABLE WATER
SF has done little to sustainably expand or diversify our potable water supply, as actions taken so far rely on data that is no longer relevant due to climate chaos. Meanwhile, we continue to waste water, depleting what is, for the foreseeable future, a minimally-renewable resource. D-
IMMEDIATE ENERGY NEEDS
Our energy system is very vulnerable and we have few backup energy sources available for our short-term needs in a disaster. D-
LONG-TERM ENERGY NEEDS
SF has nothing in place, and is not considering this problem or taking steps to fix it. F
PRECIPITATION FLOODING
We have multiple systems in place, but they are insufficient for the precipitation events we are already seeing due to climate change. D
SEA LEVEL RISE FLOODING
SF is utterly and completely unprepared, has no plans, and is actively in denial about this. F
HEAT
SF is unprepared and lacking in resources to prevent heat deaths. D-
DISPLACED PEOPLE
SF’s social welfare systems are mostly private and overwhelmed already. As more displaced people come, SF’s situation will grow worse and worse. D-
COMMUNICATIONS
Our emergency communication system is broken, relies on volunteers who are few in number, and is inadequate for large scale emergencies. D
That’s an F average.
Anything below C level is not survivable