(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Efficiency and Conservation -- Strike for the Planet week 154 [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-12-11 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 154 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 2025 or Bust! This week’s topic is Efficiency and Conservation “Oh, come on! Too boring, not sexy.” Really? Real-life disasters are stress-filled while also being boring. Efficiency and conservation are a lot sexier than heat death. “Efficiency and conservation don’t make people happy.” The average American throws out 4.5 pounds of damaged and degraded resources every day, while the global average is only 1.6 pounds per day. Based on the World Happiness Report for 2022 and the evidence of mass shootings, racism, systemic injustice, misogyny, and economic inequality, wasting resources isn’t making Americans happy. Wasting resources means we suffer. Already, Hetch Hetchy’s water level has fallen dangerously low and, due to the megadrought and climate change, it’s likely to keep dropping. Less Hetch Hetchy water cuts into not only SF’s water supply but also SF’s energy supply. Who uses Hetch Hetchy for energy? All of SFUSD, our fire stations, hospitals, MUNI, and more. Hetch Hetchy produces almost 20% of SF’s energy. Less doesn’t mean worse. Less Hetch Hetchy water doesn’t have to hurt us. In SF, we’ve got plenty of other ways to produce energy and ways to significantly reduce our need for imported water. In fact, the cheapest way for us to “produce” energy and water is to reduce our waste. I’ve been in the school district for 28 years, and I guarantee there’s an enormous amount of both energy and water wasted in the schools. The same is likely true for fire stations, hospitals, MUNI, etc. “But we tried conservation before and it doesn’t work.” Actually, it does. Waste is bad; resources on earth are finite, and they are rapidly being degraded or disappearing. Americans have been convinced we shouldn’t conserve, that conserving is bad for the economy. But conservation (aka saving) is the basis of the banking industry. Climate change is bad for the economy. Conservation works. “Fine, but efficiency won’t make a difference.” Part of the reason why there’s little conservation happening in schools is because the buildings themselves bleed resources. Designing efficiency into our infrastructure and our lives is not difficult and can reduce by at least two-thirds the energy currently generated by burning fossil fuels. There are numerous cheap and quick efficiency upgrades that will produce large energy savings. Efficiency works. “Okay, we’ll put them on the list of things to look at eventually.” Nope. We’ve got 3 years to get our carbon emissions into a permanent and rapid downward trend or we won’t make it. It’s literally now or never, 2025 or bust. This isn’t rocket science. Bad choices of the past can be changed into good choices now. Little things make a difference, and there are a LOT of little things we can do right now, from insulating buildings to taking some stickers off of walls. BUT YOU HAVE TO ACT NOW! Sticker on the wall above the toilet in the Women’s Faculty bathroom in an SFUSD school, delivering a bad message during a megadrought. (photo credit H. Buffum) FOOTNOTES 1. Jessica Wolfrom. “S.F.’s hydropower supply is under threat”. San Francisco Examiner. 30 March 2022. https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/the-drought-could-force-s-f-to-rely-on-dirty-energy-sources/ . 2. See multiple prior Strike letters on the wealth of energy potential in SF. 3. John Vidal. “Energy efficiency guru Amory Lovins: ‘It’s the largest, cheapest, safest, cleanest way to address the crisis’”. The Guardian. 26 March 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/26/amory-lovins-energy-efficiency-interview-cheapest-safest-cleanest-crisis . [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/12/11/2209311/-Efficiency-and-Conservation-Strike-for-the-Planet-week-154?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_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/