Public Comment

Where to begin? The Berkeley City Council voted Tuesday evening to extend the COVID-19 emergency to October 1, 2021, an action that makes a lot of sense given that the number of recorded daily new cases is skyrocketing even here in California. The other pieces to the City Council COVID vote are that meetings will continue as remote, new legislation is at a standstill and the stranglehold on commissions will continue. 

Back to where to begin: I was almost done with this installment of the Activist’s Diary when I took a glance at Earthweek by Steve Newman in today’s San Francisco Chronicle for the week ending Friday, July 23. I’ve been cutting these out of the paper and collecting them for some time. I can’t say why I started, but today seeing what I already know in print was startling. The title has always been, “Earthweek: a diary of the planet.” Today it is “Earthweek: Diary of a Changing World.” That title change was followed by: 

“Atmospheric experts concede that they were shocked by the intensity of recent European floods and the North American heat dome, saying their computer models are not yet able to project such extremes. Some scientists say the next official predictions due out in August by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] will already be outdated when released because of the rapidly intensifying climate emergency. Extreme weather events are now happening with greater frequency.” 

My reading for this last week was The Weather Machine: A Journey Inside the Forecast by Andrew Blum. Like nearly all the books I pick up, I am fascinated by the content, and this one was so interesting because of the extreme weather events we are living through and the computers we carry around in our phones. I have a list of cities on my iPhone for places my friends and family live that I can check in an instant for air quality, visibility and, of course, the weather, but were the floods in Europe predicted? 

Yes, I found an article by Hannah Cloke, Professor of Hydrology, University of Reading (the University of Reading is described in the book saying that she predicted the flooding. But I think, along with Steve Newman, that computer models are not up to the job. Neither is our comprehension of the climate extremes and weather events we face. https://theconversation.com/europes-catastrophic-flooding-was-forecast-well-in-advance-what-went-so-wrong-164818 

We are in a rapidly intensifying emergency, but we are acting as if that emergency is still off into some distant future like the end of this century or beyond. If the European floods, the northwest heat dome, fires that burn so hot that they create their own weather and extreme and exceptional droughts are what we get at 1.2°C of temperature rise what happens when we cross 1.5°C in a couple of years? 

The California Senate Bills SB 9 (author Toni Atkins) and SB 10 (author Scott Wiener) coming up for a vote in Sacramento pay not one shred of attention to the environment and climate. These housing bills, supported by local representatives Senator Nancy Skinner and ASM Buffy Wicks, are the dream of real estate developers and their supporters at California YIMBY. It is as though the only thing that matters is building everywhere for an explosion of population and the desired spending that follows to fill the campaign coffers. 

I think about a statement years ago from a friend, H. Roger Smith, “We can’t continue to cover our farmland with housing and expect to survive as a nation.” I don’t think H. was into bugs, but there is another quote that has been on my mind from the biologist Edward O. Wilson: “Insects are the little things that run the world.” Wilson is quoted by Douglas W. Tallamy with the following in many of his talks available on YouTube. 

“If, insects were to disappear most flowering plants would go extinct, that would change the physical structure and energy flow of most terrestrial habitats, which would cause the collapse of the food webs that support amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. The biosphere would rot due to the loss of insect decomposters. Humanity would be doomed.” 

Tallamy isn’t all doom and gloom. He gives us a way out and writes and speaks about the path to follow to restore habitat and ecosystems. 

Building housing needs to be balanced with providing connected open green space for biodiversity and space for the insects that run the world. That open green space cannot be filled with ornamental non-native plants, and the bug spray needs to stay on the shelf. We can’t build lot-line to lot-line or leave just a little strip between hardscape and buildings with no regard for biodiversity and ecosystems and expect to survive as a species. 

If you are not already converted to planting natives and using what space you have for native plants, then it is time to pick up a Tallamy book and start with these YouTube videos: How Gardening with Native Plants Helps Wildlife, CA Focus. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKe0UzqazuU and Bringing Nature Home to Lancaster https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwJbP0yA0gc 

This coming Tuesday item 28 in the council agenda is: Objective Standards Recommendations for Density, Design and Shadows. Mayor Arreguin said at the Agenda and Rules Committee on July 12th that he would be submitting a Supplemental. Another usual Arreguin M.O: Submit something at the last minute that no one has had time to read and digest, and expect a majority vote from the faithful councilmembers who are too timid, cowered or lacking in backbone to stand against it. 

I wouldn’t hold my breath that Arreguin will come up with anything that considers the environment, biodiversity, ecosystems or how density, lot coverage, hardscape can actually change local climate through heat island effect and exacerbate the critical state of the drought with water runoff and loss of trees and insects. Arreguin from all appearances seems to be driven by ambition. Doing real work to address things like the environment and climate just gets in the way. 

Addressing climate and the environment means delivering bad news and that is something politicians are loath to do. Look at all the hand wringing Councilmember Wengraf has done over the years around fire. Will all those winding narrow roads in the hills ever get red paint to prohibit street parking? Councilmember Hahn for all her protestations of caring about climate is an unreliable vote. Councilmember Droste is already deep in the California YIMBY build, build, build cult. 

Councilmember Taplin is doing better than I expected, but it was real estate PAC money and support from Arreguin and Hahn that put him into office. He appears to be holding steadfast to the myth that building more housing will make it affordable. Taplin like Robinson need to read Sick City Disease, Race, Inequality and Urban Land by Patrick Condon.  

Finding someone who actually comprehends the climate emergency and integrates it into consistent action is hard to find. Only one member of council stands out, Kate Harrison. I wish she was our mayor. 

I remember when I first woke up to climate and got involved in the anti-fracking movement. I was walking with Cate Leger and Kathy Dervin. All three of us were on our way to Kathy’s plug-in hybrid Prius for a trip to Sacramento to speak at hearing on fracking. Kathy was talking about not wanting to give up her natural gas stove and Cate, an architect with a focus on green architecture, turned to Kathy in an insistent way and said, “get over it.” Cate lives in a compact all electric house with solar and barrels for water collection. 

I finally ditched burning methane in my kitchen, my water heater and house in 2019. Natural gas is METHANE. You may be horrified about methane leaking from oil wells or bubbling up from thawing permafrost, but do you think when you turn on that gas stove that you are burning toxic methane in your kitchen? 

This should be enough to stew over. Rather than crawling under the covers and trying to hide, compel yourself to act, go through the Activist’s Calendar, pick your meetings to attend, show up and comment. 

I can say from experience, it is way easier to go on zoom than to arrive in person, although it was always more interesting to watch the room, which Berkeley’s anonymous webinar format for Zoom prevents. I usually have a heavy list of city meetings and this week is no different. Besides Council on Tuesday, there is Zero Waste on Monday, Energy Commission and the meeting on water and drought on Wednesday and Reimagining Public Safety on Thursday. 

And, pick up the challenge from Douglas Tallamy. He has convinced me. I’m putting my plan together to pull up non-natives. 

As for COVID, it is looking more and more like Laurie Garrett, the author of the 1994 best seller The Coming Plague, had it right when she said over a year ago that her best-case scenario was 36 months in predicting how long the pandemic would last. It is looking more like COVID will be with us for a very, very long time.