(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Science, PP, and Resiliency -- Strike for the Planet week 96 [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-04 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 96 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 Save San Francisco While You Still Can! Act Already!! This week’s letter: Science, the Precautionary Principle, and Resiliency You have to act to save SF To review, again: Climate change is human-caused1 and choosing to do nothing about it is both political2 and literal suicide3 because not only are humans causing planetary devastation, we’re also making local choices that pile up the misery. For example, from this year alone: The Uttarakhand flood — A massive landslide wiped out a dam and killed at least 70 with many more missing. 4 Scientists and locals all warned that the area was too unstable and too steep for hydroelectric projects or dams. The evidence that climate change had made the area geologically unsafe was well known. But the people with power and money didn’t listen and didn’t care. — A massive landslide wiped out a dam and killed at least 70 with many more missing. Scientists and locals all warned that the area was too unstable and too steep for hydroelectric projects or dams. The evidence that climate change had made the area geologically unsafe was well known. But the people with power and money didn’t listen and didn’t care. The Texas Deep Freeze — Greed loves deregulation, and thorough deregulation could only be gained with the “independence” of the Texas power grid from federal oversight. So Texas cut itself off from the rest of the U.S. and ERCOT set its own rules. But greed and deregulation make preparing for unusual conditions economically undesirable. 5 When climate change caused the polar vortex to break and send arctic air down the plains 6 , the Texas power supply froze and crashed, pipes froze and burst, and the disaster continues worsening daily. 7 — Greed loves deregulation, and thorough deregulation could only be gained with the “independence” of the Texas power grid from federal oversight. So Texas cut itself off from the rest of the U.S. and ERCOT set its own rules. But greed and deregulation make preparing for unusual conditions economically undesirable. When climate change caused the polar vortex to break and send arctic air down the plains , the Texas power supply froze and crashed, pipes froze and burst, and the disaster continues worsening daily. The US pandemic response — The former administration’s attacks on reality doomed a ½ million people.8, 9 This pandemic is likely the first of many caused by climate change.10 Climate change is a killer. So we can’t keep choosing things that don't help or actively make SF’s situation worse, yet that’s exactly what you’re doing.11, 12, 13 How do we get out of this mess? How do we survive? We survive by acting, and we only act based on science, the Precautionary principle, and resiliency. Science, the Precautionary Principle, and Resiliency Let’s go over some definitions first. Science This is another way of saying “facts” or “reality.” Science is data-supported, peer-reviewed, and testable human knowledge of how the universe operates. It represents our best understanding of cause and effect. This is another way of saying “facts” or “reality.” Science is data-supported, peer-reviewed, and testable human knowledge of how the universe operates. It represents our best understanding of cause and effect. The Precautionary Principle This is another term for “foresight” or “caution”. Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (1992) defines the PP as action. It says, “where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.” 14 Uncertainty does not justify inaction, and action must be based on the best scientific data at the time. This is another term for “foresight” or “caution”. Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (1992) defines the PP as action. It says, “where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.” Uncertainty does not justify inaction, and action must be based on the best scientific data at the time. Resiliency Environmental resiliency is “the capacity of an ecosystem to respond to disturbances by resisting damage, recovering quickly, and reorganizing while undergoing change to eventually retain the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks.”15 It is a local way of anchoring an ecosystem to weather changes, from the small to the catastrophic. What do these look like in SF? Science must be the deciding factor in every situation. Why? Ignoring reality won’t make it go away, so we must deal with the data. In every situation where science is applicable, the science has to be consulted, considered, and reviewed on a regular basis.16 Where the science is in conflict with some other consideration, science wins. SF already has the nucleus of the organization to accomplish this. SF Environment and the Office of Resilience and Capital Planning have been doing this work for decades. Now they need to be given the funds and the lead. How do you give the lead on policy and implementation to SF Environment and the Office of Resilience and Capital Planning? You do it by actually following the Precautionary Principle already in SF law.17 At long last, you just have to act on it. And resiliency means making sure we can provide the essentials locally. We don’t cut ourselves off like Texas, but we also don’t depend on distant providers for things we must have to survive. For instance, the chunk of arctic vortex that froze Texas also decimated our vaccine supply because the vaccine manufacturing plants are in Massachusetts and Minnesota. One good earthquake and a few thirsty communities or greedy agribusinesses and we have no Hetch Hetchy water. We need to be building up our local options for the necessities and we need to be doing that now. Act now, because reaction doesn’t work. Adaptation (reacting) is more expensive, less effective, deadlier, more unequal and unjust, and produces more long-term damage than mitigation (acting).18 Act now, because not acting is positively Trumpian. It’s now or never, really. Time’s up.19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 Our current situation is what we thought the worst case scenario would be 10 years from now. And the current conditions are worsening daily.27, 28 It’s time to fight for SF now. FOOTNOTES 1. “How Do We Know that Humans Are the Major Cause of Global Warming?” Union of Concerned Scientists. 21 January 2021. https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/are-humans-major-cause-global-warming . 2. Jeremy Deaton. “The politics of climate change have undergone a radical shift. The press should take note”. The Hill. 1 December 2020. https://thehill.com/changing-america/opinion/528186-the-politics-of-climate-change-have-undergone-a-radical-shift-the. 3. Luke Darby. “Human Civilization Isn’t Prepared to Survive Climate Change”. GQ. 17 June 2019. https://www.gq.com/story/climate-change-david-spratt . 4. “Uttarakhand Floods: Death Toll Rises to 70, 29 Parts Recovered from Tapovan Till Now”. News 18. 22 February 2021. https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/other/uttarakhand-floods-death-toll-rises-to-70-29-body-parts-recovered-from-tapovan-till-now/ar-BB1dUwkB?%253Bc=7711683874239601581%2c10646996605049769583. 5. This is an accounting fallacy, by the way, promoted to allow more theft of the commons for corporate profits. It can be boiled down to “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” which turns out, monetarily, to be absolutely true. See Francis Ghesquiere’s 2013 piece at Huffington Post ( https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/francis-ghesquiere/natural-disaster-risk_b_3279932.html ) and Drea Knufken’s 2010 account of the costs of corporate-caused disasters in the Business Pundit ( https://www.businesspundit.com/the-worlds-worst-environmental-disasters-caused-by-companies/ ) for more details. 6. Associated Press. “How ‘topsy turvy’ polar vortex brought record freeze to Texas”. NBC News. 17 February 2021. https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/topsy-turvy-polar-vortex-brought-record-freeze-texas-rcna290 . 7. Benjamin Storrow. “Why the Deep Freeze Caused Texas to Lose Power”. Scientific American. 18 February 2021. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-the-deep-freeze-caused-texas-to-lose-power/ . 8. William Saletan. “The Trump Pandemic”. Slate. 9 August 2020. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/08/trump-coronavirus-deaths-timeline.html . 9. Dan Satherley. “Donald Trump’s policies led to the deaths of a million Americans, even before COVID hit - scientists”. Newshub. 13 February 2021. https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2021/02/donald-trump-s-policies-led-to-the-deaths-of-a-million-americans-even-before-covid-hit-scientists.html . 10. UH News. “Climate change, bats linked to COVID-19 pandemic”. University of Hawai’i News. 5 Februry 2021. https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2021/02/05/climate-change-bats-covid19/. 11. Kurtis Alexander. “Buildings like S.F.’s Millennium Tower are causing the Bay Area to sink under their weight.” San Francisco Chronicle. 19 February 2021. https://www.sfchronicle.com/environment/article/San-Francisco-Bay-Area-sinking-under-its-own-15961703.php . 12. Katherine Howard. “The SkyStar Observation Wheel in Golden Gate Park Should Close to Protect Our Wildlife”. Sierra Club San Francisco Bay. 4 February 2021. https://www.sierraclub.org/san-francisco-bay/blog/2021/02/skystar-observation-wheel-golden-gate-park-should-close-protect-our . 13. Jimmy Tobias. “As Californians Fight Over Fresh Water, The San Francisco Bay Barely Survives”. Pacific Standard. 14 June 2017. https://psmag.com/news/as-californians-fight-over-fresh-water-the-san-francisco-bay-barely-survives . 14. Jason Shogren. Encyclopedia of Energy, Natural Resource, and Environmental Economics . p. 332-338. Elsevier. 2013. https://www.sciencedirect.com/referencework/9780080964522/encyclopedia-of-energy-natural-resource-and-environmental-economics . 15. “Environmental Resiliency”. CSU Channel Islands. Accessed 24 February 2021. https://www.csuci.edu/fs/sustainability/environmental-resiliency.htm . 16. Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate. “Decision Frameworks for Effective Responses to Climate Change”. Informing an Effective Response to Climate Change . Chapter 3, p. 91 - 122. The National Academies Press. 2010. 17. “SF Precautionary Principle Ordinance”. SF Gov. Accessed 24 February 2021. http://www.rachel.org/files/document/San_Francisco_Precautionary_Principle_Ordinanc.pdf . 18. “What’s cheaper, mitigation or adaptation?” Skeptical Science. Accessed 24 February 2021. https://skepticalscience.net/pdf/rebuttal/mitigation-cheaper-than-adaptation-intermediate.pdf. 19. 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 . 20. 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 . 21. 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 . 22. 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/ . 23. 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 . 24. John D. Sutter. “Vanishing”. CNN. Accessed 30 June 2020. https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2016/12/specials/vanishing/ . 25. 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/ . 26. 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/ . 27. Lauren Frayer. “Scores Are Feared Dead In India After Himalayan Glacier Breaks Away”. NPR. 7 February 2021. https://www.npr.org/2021/02/07/965046888/scores-are-feared-dead-in-india-after-himalayan-glacier-breaks-away . It’s now looking like it was a landslide which makes the situation worse. 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