(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Megadrought! The Musical -- Strike for the Planet week 113 [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-24 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 113 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 know we’re in the first years of a megadrought, right. Right!? Maybe if things are flashy and fun you’ll pay attention. Musicals are flashy and fun but can be about serious stuff, too; Fiddler on the Roof ends in an ethnic cleansing, South Pacific revolves around racism, there’s family dysfunction and abuse and suicide in Fun Home, mental illness in Next To Normal, and a fatal lack of sex education in Spring Awakening. Fun, right? So let’s give it a go, Joe.1 Settling in for an indefinite run Opening Number and intro to the World of the Play — it’s hot and dry out here How (you might ask if you weren’t paying attention during the prior 112 weeks of this strike) am I able to state categorically and with absolute assurance that we’re in a megadrought right now? Because it’s science! Cause and effect, testable hypotheses, multiple evidence strands….2 You know, I think it’s time for the “I Want” number and to meet our hero/ine. What does San Francisco want? Poor little rich San Francisco, it just wants to keep on keeping on, making money for billionaires and their appendages while gutting housing, the commons, the neighborhoods and working and middle classes, underfunding transit and public schools, and destroying the regional watershed.3 So what is getting in the way of these noble goals?4 Enter the villain with the “I Am” song Megadrought! Megadrought has a plan. That plan is to make SF: Run out of water5 Demolish the ecosystems that support precipitation6 Lose energy7 Run out of food8 Die in big numbers9 Fall in productivity10 And widen the gulf between the haves and the have-nots.11 It’s a nefarious scheme our villain is running. SF will have lots more smoke and fire danger and a greatly reduced ability to fight fires due to the lack of water (oh the irony!), a reduced tax base due to emigration to places that have water and sky, regional changes that greatly impact SF (like a flooded airport, for starters12), and a crisis situation that lasts for a long, long time.13 Past megadroughts have destroyed civilizations.14 And even though a sidekick character has ideas about how to survive this one, we’re not listening to them. Not only are we not following recommendations of humans who have lived through past megadroughts in this area, but we are actively ignoring them.15 Oh, and this change is permanent. There’s no “going back to normal.” That’s not how musicals work.16 This looks bad. What can we do? A tap number then intermission. Tap dance wallpaper is good for your sanity. That didn’t solve things? Well then, it’s probably time to act on the science! Start the second act by doing blackwater recycling, composting toilets, increased native tree planting, building more bioswales, enforcing permeable surface regulations and increasing the areas that must be permeable, stop water wastage in tear-downs, release more water to the Tuolumne, impose heavy water fines for waste based on means, and so much more!17 Conservation is vital, not an “if you can” kind of thing, and it’s vital now! Jazz hands, in action. It’s time to do all that jazz! But wait! This musical already exists. It’s called Urinetown.18 You see, it’s not politics; it’s about survival.19 We’ve already shrunk the atmosphere20 and shifted the poles21, we’re pissing away the water while letting CO 2 spewing cars run riot throughout the city.22, 23 SF’s chances for survival are borderline at best, and require immediate action.24 You say you are bound by the Precautionary Principle. So step up — don’t be the bunny!25 FOOTNOTES 1. Bob Crewe and Kenny Nolan. “Lady Marmalade”. Moulin Rogue! The Muscial. And the rest of the credits are ridiculous (that’s what happens with juke box musicals). 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTbPslvdYa8 . 2. Really. There are 112 prior strike letters and at least 19 of them directly talk about the details, in great detail, of this topic. 3. https://www.sfmt.org . Don’t take my word for it — they’ve got a Tony. 4. And, in case you’re missing the sarcasm gene, that appellation — noble — is sarcastic. Have you been reading any of the Strike letters? Any of them? 5. Because if you think the water from Hetch Hetchy will make it through a dry-as-dust Central Valley full of guns and ammonium (great for explosives) when things get rough, I’ve got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. 6. Yeah, kill the Tuolumne by taking the water away from the species that live in the water. Great plan. Sorry, musicals are snappy, you know. 7. Start with Lake Oroville’s problems ( https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/water-and-drought/article252163238.html by Dale Kasler) then add in the destruction via wildfire of a lot of the transmission grid, and you’ve got blackouts that last. 8. If you need it spelled out, no water = no food. 9. Heat kills more than all storm natural disasters combined. Have you checked the temperatures lately? 10. A direct result of hotter temps. 11. Even more than you’ve already done! Amazing, isn’t it? 12. Tia Ghose. “San Francisco’s Airport is Sinking into the Bay”. Live Science. 7 March 2018. https://www.livescience.com/61956-san-francisco-s-airport-is-sinking-into-the-bay.html . 13. Megadroughts last decades to centuries. Just sayin’. 14. Please, just go read the prior Strike letters on this if you want the references. There’s a lot of them (both Strike letters on this topic and references to empires that fell from megadroughts). 15. Yeah, talk to the Native tribes about fire suppression, for instance. 16. Additionally, this is only one of the villains we have to face. But we’re leaving extinction event and sea level rise and ocean acidification and nano-plastics and endocrine disruptors and all the rest out of this show because too much plot spoils the storyline. But they’re all there, and they’re all doing their things, too. 17. Agriculture in SF! Cooling naturally! There are things we can do IF WE ACT NOW! 18. Let’s let Wikipedia set the scene: The show opens with a grim welcome from Officer Lockstock, a policeman, assisted by the street urchin Little Sally. According to Lockstock and Little Sally, a twenty-year drought has caused a terrible water shortage, making private toilets unthinkable. All restroom activities are done in public toilets controlled by a megacorporation called "Urine Good Company" (or UGC). To control water consumption, people have to pay to use the amenities ("Too Much Exposition"). There are harsh laws ensuring that people pay to urinate, and if the laws are broken, the offender is sent to a place called "Urinetown," never to return. 19. Aiko Stevenson. “Can Human Beings Survive The Impending Climate Crisis?” Huffpost. 3 August 2017. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/can-humans-beings-survive-the-impending-climate-crisis_b_59829712e4b0396a95c874c5 . 20. Damian Carrington. “Climate emissions shrinking the stratosphere, scientists reveal”. The Guardian. 12 May 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/12/emissions-shrinking-the-stratosphere-scientists-find . 21. Damian Carrington. “Climate crisis has shifted the Earth’s axis, study shows”. The Guardian. 23 April 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/23/climate-crisis-has-shifted-the-earths-axis-study-shows . 22. admin. “12-year-old boy struck and killed by car in San Francisco”. Speedlux. 11 February 2021. https://speedlux.com/12-year-old-boy-struck-and-killed-by-car-san-francisco/ . 23. Dan McMenamin. “Medical examiner identifies woman killed by hit-and-run driver near City Hall”. Bay City News. 19 May 2021. https://sfbayca.com/2021/05/19/medical-examiner-identifies-woman-killed-by-hit-and-run-driver-near-city-hall/ . 24. Richard Procter. “San Francisco Knows How to Stop Global Warming — Will It?” SF Weekly. 11 September 2019. https://www.sfweekly.com/news/san-francisco-climate-change-emissions/ . 25. From Urinetown. The song is called “Don’t Be The Bunny”. Mark Hollmann and Greg Kotis. 2001. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgH0fOcp3T8 . Don’t Be The Bunny! [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/24/2200799/-Megadrought-The-Musical-Strike-for-the-Planet-week-113?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/