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This is the letter for week 179 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
The results were so predictable they were, in fact, predicted
This week’s topic: What are you so afraid of?
Artificial turf — remember that?
The stuff you layered over natural permeable park land all over the city? The stuff that’s a plastic carpet on a concrete slab, with a life expectancy of 10 years, prone to off-gassing and spreading black crumb rubber everywhere? You remember.
Well, it turns out it’s toxic
Surprise, surprise! Whoever would have thought it?
How toxic?
You know PFAS? Per- and polyfluoroalkyl compounds, otherwise known as forever chemicals? Linked to cancers, liver disease, thyroid problems, birth defects, kidney disease, childhood developmental problems, immune disorders, and more? Yeah, them. PFAS are in artificial turf. The really toxic ones, like 6:2 FTOH and PFOS have been found in turf fields. We know they are getting into our bodies; PFAS are even found in umbilical cord blood. They bioaccumulate. And the artificial turf industry has said that they cannot make the blades and backing without PFAS.1
Sucks, right? But wait, there’s more. The turf fields in SF mostly have ground rubber infill, made from old tires containing heavy metals, benzene, carbon black, VOCs, and other carcinogens. As Kyla Bennett, former EPA official says, “it seems kind of nonsensical to put ground-up tires in a field where children are playing.”
Additionally, all artificial turf emits significant amounts of methane, a strong GHG, over its lifetime.2 Artificial turf sheds microplastics into the air and water. And artificial turf produces a wicked heat island effect, both at the surface level and in the air above it.
But you knew all this already
There’s plenty of records from multiple SF hearings on this very topic that show that you were warned, that you knew. You knew and chose the dirty, deadly course of action anyway. I believe that lays SF wide-open to lawsuits that we cannot win. Why? Because you failed your duty to protect the health and safety of the people of SF even with prior knowledge of the science.
Now expand this
How many lawsuits can SF withstand when you, the government of SF, are acting badly on multiple fronts (building in flood zones, not cleaning up toxins, building on toxic dump sites, increasing light and sound pollution, reducing permeable surfaces, increasing toxic run-off, etc.) and failing to take absolutely required good actions (retreating from the coasts, drastically cutting our CO2 production, mandating alternative energy, overhauling our water system, etc)?
What are you afraid of?
Action is clearly the only option, yet you don’t act.
Or do you lack imagination enough to see the writing on the wall?
FOOTNOTES
1. Tom Perkins. “Boston bans artificial turf in parks due to toxic ‘forever chemicals’”. The Guardian. 30 September 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/30/boston-bans-artificial-turf-toxic-forever-chemicals-pfas.
2. John Englart. “Natural grass or Synthetic turf? What are the total life cycle emission profiles”. Climate Action Moreland. 28 February 2021. https://climateactionmoreland.org/2021/02/28/natural-grass-or-synthetic-turf-what-are-the-total-life-cycle-emission-profiles/.