This
paper published in 2016 by the Union of Concerned Scientists starts by
saying “for nearly three decades fossil fuel companies have worked to
distort climate science and deceive the public.”
For those who still feel that global warming
is not real, check out this
link from Skeptical Science that goes
through each of the arguments on both sides.
In 2018,
the UN issued a warning to the world that we likely had less than 11 years left to
cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 50% worldwide or suffer “disastrous
consequences”. Such disastrous consequences are widely interpreted to
include such possible phenomena as passing a “tipping point” beyond which life
on the Earth could become no longer possible.
It is also well known that our food systems and life forms are in
jeopardy because many crops, animals, and plants rely on ecosystems of certain
temperatures and climates that will be destroyed at higher temperatures.
It is also known that it could cause the
collapse of civilization due to civil unrest due to displacement and starvation
of huge numbers of people and lack of clean water.
This means countries like the United States realistically
need to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% by about 2024 in order to
meet worldwide emissions cuts of 50% by 2029, which is around the end date that
the UN warned of, so is there is time to help less able countries meet these
goals after we ourselves have met these goals.
This is not an impossible dream. In 1942, the USA went from producing 100% cars to 100% tanks within 3 years. This proves that it would take no more than 3 years, if mandated by executive decision by the president of the USA, to transition from 100% free form cars to 100% electric vehicles. The necessity to prevent further catastrophic damage from global warming means this effort should be carried out immediately, in order to meet the goal of reducing GHG emissions by 50% by 2025, to give the world a chance to meet its goal of reducing GHG emissions by 50% by 2029, to prevent catastrophic consequences, as warned by the UN in 2018. After the USA meets its goal in 2025, it can turn and help other less able countries meet their goals by 2029.
In 2018, Extinction Rebellion (XR) was formed in the UK to sound the warning of a Climate
Emergency.
Their goals were (1) to declare a climate emergency and for the media
and leaders to tell the truth about it, (2) to reach net zero Greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions by 2025, and (3) to form a people's assembly from common people
to oversee the changes needed to implement this.
That last one is because the governments and
politicians themselves have known about this problem for at least 50 years
(such as warnings from government scientist James Hansen in the 1970's) and
have so far been unable to make any real change in 50 years (much talk, little
action). They seem to be trapped in
cliche thinking and unable to make the necessary decisions to save the people,
animals, plants, and planet.That is why
a people's assembly consisting of hard-working people is needed.
An International XR movement was sparked to carry out the just transition to a sustainable future,
with chapters in many of the large municipalities.
In April of 2019, the UK declared a Climate Emergency
resolution, setting an example for other
municipalities to strive for.
In June of 2019, New York City also declared a Climate
Emergency resolution.
Also in June 2019, following UK's lead, Canada declared a Climate
Emergency
Canada declared a Climate Emergency but the next day
approved a major pipeline expansion project,
underscoring the truth that a resolution is not binding and is just a first
step in the process of a just transition towards net zero GHG emissions.
Despite the concerted effort of millions of people to
motivate the leaders and owners, the leaders and owners continue to not take
the Climate Emergency seriously and just pay lip service to the idea of a
Climate Emergency, in some cases, but so far don't seem too serious about
actually addressing it in the time frame that the UN warned us about.
In 2019, Extinction Rebellion Chicago performed many Non-Violent Direct Actions in and around
Chicago, almost all of which were ignored by the media. Here is a demonstration that XR Chicago did on April 15th, 2019, and here is a link to the first demonstration that XR Chicago did on January 26, 2019. XR Chicago also did a demonstration that led to 2 arrests during a greenwashing conference, and they made a press release, but it was completely ignored by the media (as were most of the demonstrations).
The biggest demonstration that XR Chicago did
so far was
a huge demonstration
that took the streets during the Fall Rebellion of October 2019, with the goal
of getting municipalities to Declare and Act On a Climate Emergency, from
February 2019 through November 2019.
In February 2020, Chicago declared a
Climate Emergency Resolution, written by a former member of the Chicago Ministry of the
Environment David O'Donnell, with some collaboration with Extinction
Rebellion Chicago members.
It was based
on templates provided by a group called
Climate Mobilization
that has been trying to get municipalities worldwide to adopt similar
resolutions. This resolution became
sponsored by Alderman Matt Martin of the 47th Ward along with many
co-sponsors including Daniel La Spata of the 1st
Ward.
The city of Chicago claimed that
the Climate Emergency resolution was passed due to increasing water level of
Lake Michigan.
Also, in February 2020, an Elgin Citizen's Initiative formed that would eventually pass a Climate Emergency resolution
in Elgin.
The Elgin Climate Emergency resolution did not fully pass
the legal department for a full two-and-one-half months (until May 2020).Since it is a
resolution and does not commit or bind Elgin to do anything, it was determined
that it did not pose any legal problem and was unchanged through this process.
As soon as possible after it had passed the legal department, the Citizen
Initiative had it brought before Elgin City Council.
On May 27, 2020, Elgin declared a
Climate Emergency Resolution with a vote of 6-3 in Elgin City
Council, at the next available meeting.
In the debate during that meeting however, and the fact of the 3
dissenting votes, it is clear that many people in the Elgin City Council are
not up-to-speed on the science of the climate emergency
as warned by the UN in 2018, or are opposed to this effort, or have in mind their own
strategy to deal with the problem, even if vague or non-realizable.
As an add-on to the Climate Emergency Resolution, the Elgin
Sustainability Commission ruled that an Elgin Climate Emergency Work Group
would be setup to handle this resolution,
that would have the sole purpose of making recommendations to one person on the
Elgin Sustainability Commission, but cannot officially communicate with the
Elgin Sustainability Commission directly except in very brief, monthly opportunities
during very brief updates at monthly Commission meetings with scant opportunity for discussion.
The Elgin Sustainability Commission itself also cannot make any binding
decisions; it can only make recommendations to Elgin City Council, and is not
currently part of the decision-making process that determines and decides
budgets. The Climate Emergency Work
Group would operate parallel and separate from the other work that the Elgin
Sustainability Commission was involved with, which the commissioners at that
time seemed to secretly feel was more important and more real than the work
being proposed based on their attitudes and actions at the time.
In March of 2020, the Elgin Climate Emergency Work Group
made its own original list of
the
changes required (ordinances) to begin to address the Climate Emergency.
There is very little overlap between the old Elgin
Sustainability Action Plan from 2011-2017 to the list of goals (in link above) that the
new citizen's work group is recommending
that are directed more at mitigation of Climate Emergency causes rather than
just any type of sustainability effort.
The next meeting of the Elgin Sustainability Commission
after March 10, 2020 was on June 30, 2020; because of the pandemic, the Elgin
commissions had been completely shut down and forbidden to carry out any
business for 3 months. The pervading
mandate from up high and throughout the media is that the pandemic was the sole
priority of the country and all other efforts and activities were
secondary, which is one of the most damaging and harmful thing that this country
has ever done.
So, it was a full 3 months before the commission reopened
for business. On that day, there was a
signup sheet for those who wanted to join the Elgin Climate Emergency Action
Work Group. The Work Group would not
start to conduct business until July 8th ,
2020.
On July 4th, 2020, Paul Berland sent an E-mail to
all Chicago and Elgin City Council Members asking:
Dear
City Council Members,
The
city has voted and acknowledged that we are in the midst of a Climate
Emergency.
This
Climate Emergency is
man-made
and
can be reversed with
timely
action.
This
action must be done on a local level before we can make a global
difference.
If this
problem is ignored for
more than a year, there will be a non-existent future
for our kids.
There
has been gross
mis-information and
mis-representation
in
mass-media about this problem.
Probably
the reason for this is to prevent a panic among the public citizens.
However,
I believe this a bad reason and I believe the opposite is true: if the public
is made aware of the real situation of the crisis, but in a reasonable,
calm-headed manner, and with the added reassurance that there
is a
solution and a path forward to avert this crisis, then the
people will act with more clear-headed direction and unity to address this
quite real crisis in order to save the future for humanity.
The
public must be made aware from an authoritative source, meaning the city.
Otherwise they will always assume this is just coming from one side of a debate
and dismiss it as controversial.
Therefore,
I have the following 2 questions for you, either individually, or as a group:
1.
Do you care about the future of humanity and our
children in the face of the climate emergency and also agree that we will be
able to solve this?
2.
Can we please add a mailer in all of the city
water bills and correspondence to each resident of the city explaining that the
city has recognized the Climate Emergency and that this is a real
problem, with similar citations as the ones above [from the
original E-mail], and also that this problem can be solved but it will require
coordinated effort from all members of the city including reducing use of
gasoline, plastics, and meat, and everyone coming to an understanding of this
issue and stop pretending this is a controversy?
Please recognize that the cost of an extra piece of paper in the
mail, or an E-mail, will probably be pennies or less, and so the total cost of
this effort will not be that great compared to other efforts that could be
employed for much greater amounts of money with much less impact.
Please also recognize that in addition to the
mailers, additional efforts for very little money should be made to update the
city web-site and newsletters with this pertinent information as well as billboards
and informational signs throughout governmental buildings, libraries, and
schools.
The only answer received from any of either Chicago or Elgin
City Council Members to these questions was just a single Chicago Alderman,
Daniel La Spata, who on July 15th, 2020
wrote:
Hi Paul,
Kind regards,
Daniel
Daniel La Spata
Alderman | 1st Ward
1958 N. Milwaukee Ave. | Chicago, IL 60647
E-Mail |
Daniel.LaSpata@cityofchicago.org
Phone |
872.223.6958
In typical politician fashion, this answer is very
vague. Daniel says “I 100% believe the tools and policies exist
that could decarbonize Chicago's economy and dramatically reduce emissions in
the next ten years”, but there are no hard goals or numbers here, probably indicating
that this idea is nothing more than foggy notion or aspiration in Daniel's
mind. “Dramatically reduce emissions”
could mean just about anything, from 5% to 95%.
Also, Daniel said “I'll talk to my staff about it though.”
Again, this indicates the type of closed
discussions that politicians are used to having.
The decision-making processes are simply not
open to the public. They like to make it
seem they are listening to the public, but ultimately, as I have been finding
over the last 8 years, this whole process is just a charade and all of the real
decision-making is done without real public input.
My last communications with Chicago Alderman Daniel La Spata's 1st
Ward office
were E-mails on August 21 and 26 and on September 10th
where I tried to keep the conversation going but they were
substantially unanswered. Phone calls
also were not returned. The same is true
of Matt Martin's 47th Ward office; communication had completely
dried up.
Both the 1st Ward and the 47th
Ward, who were the ones that were mainly active, stopped returning my phone
calls and E-mails. I applied to join the
47th Ward Green Council several times and actively tried to start a conversation
with them and were in some of their Zoom calls but these requests were
dropped and ignored by the Chicago City Council Aldermen and staff
people completely.Sunflower and I demonstrated
outside the 47th Ward office, which has been closed to the public
for more than 6 months because of the pandemic, but most of the neighborhood
seemed apathetic and ambivalent and/or ignorant of the real crisis.
It is ironic that I grew up in that
neighborhood and played soccer for the neighborhood in a clubhouse just down
the street on Lincoln Ave from the 47th Ward office but have been treated like an outsider.
Also, all the other activists in Chicago including
XR Chicago have been busy with other pursuits, or possibly had personal quarrels, and did not agree it worthwhile
to pursue my ideas further with the Chicago City Council members, and instead
picked other targets and campaigns, so they have not been pushing the 1st Ward or
the 47th Ward too hard.
Here
is a link to the efforts that the 47th
Ward is currently involved with and
here is a link
that the 1st Ward is currently involved with.
I still don't believe that Chicago is making any substantial
headway in honoring their resolution at this time, although if you ask the Chicago politicians and a majority
of the activists in Chicago, they will say otherwise, and also pin their hopes
on Joe Biden or insufficient measures like CEJA. On the other hand, I feel
that a more active approach is needed by all aware citizens of Chicago and
others who are concerned.
The idea I have for a direct mailer to all citizens of a
municipality is a possible way to begin to address this (see section on this below).I had
been pushing this all of 2020 and 2021 with Chicago and Elgin but have been
encountering significant resistance in both cities.
Chicago stopped talking to me completely for years and
Elgin consistently placed one obstacle after another in the path of any type of comprehensive
education and discussion campaign for an entire municipality.
Elgin floundered to make any sort of substantial progress because of:
1.
For the educational component, they
have unanimously (other than myself and one or two others that are close to me)
decided to go with less expensive methods of getting the word out to get the
public up-to-speed on the emergency and more involved such as social media and
the library bulletin, and with those methods, using a severely watered-down version, and not
using city letterhead or sanction of emergency-level activities.
This may be
because the “powers-that-be” absolutely refused to spend even $13,000 of their own
money on this effort, even though they routinely advocate
multi-hundred-thousand-dollar projects for the city all the time.
2.
The meager price tag of $13,000 for
the cheapest postcard mailer to 41,000 addresses was apparently too much money for them,
and they made up alibis like it would waste trees.Getting
things to be budgeted by the City is a long, drawn out process and must
be approved by the Elgin City Council, which is two levels up from the Elgin
Climate Emergency Work Group.Also, now
they claim they have
an $11 million budget deficit and are freezing staff salaries and taking other measures
to limit spending, except when it comes to the police and fire departments.
On November 11, 2020, members of the Elgin Climate Emergency
Work Group requested funds to handle sustainability efforts including the
direct mailer, but nobody in Elgin City Council
seems to recognize this need and it was not budgeted for 2021, meaning that
the earliest the City of Elgin might do a full direct mailer effort would be
2022.
3.
It is a bit of a catch 22, to educate the
public, but also the city officials, enough so that they can make the
responsible decisions to address the emergency that affects all of us.
Somehow we got
caught in a web of lies and deceit from slick marketing and advertising executives
and oil and gas lobbyists and now nobody even believes that this problem is
real or can even be addressed.
4.
They don't
seem to understand why the direct mailer approach would be more effective or
useful at all and don't realize how
confused and misled a majority of the populace is regarding the issues of
global warming and the urgency of the climate crisis. However, living in Chicago and Elgin, it is
quite clear to me that a majority of the people in these cities clearly do not
understand this urgency, as evidenced by the large number of people recently
who are still using gas-powered leaf blowers instead of rakes saving very
little amount of manual labor, but burning up more fossil fuels, and
gas-powered vehicles, especially big, gas-guzzling SUV's and other
non-efficient vehicles, and completely oblivious and unrepentent meat-eating
completely socially accepted and impervious to criticism,
apparently oblivious to the problem they are creating.
This to me cries out for a real, frank
discussion in the community that is not being had.
5.
There is also a large strain of anti-intellectualism,
entitlement (everyone feeling they've suffered worse than everyone else),
disenfranchisement, and many other unhealthy strains running through our
society right now. Mainly this is due to
the disintegration of the community and the family due to television, you-tube,
smart phones,
and the consumer capitalist culture that teaches that we are all in competition
with one another and that it is okay to be dishonest with each other, to the
point that nobody trusts anyone any more.
6.
The entire city government, as well
as other local more mainstream activists and groups such as Elgin Green Groups
350, are advocating for using only (free) social media, web sites, and
the library mailer or a shortened message, 150 words or less, in the
water bill, with perhaps an Internet link for more information.
Even though the Direct Mailer would be a
more effective way to get the message out there,
they refuse to acknowledge that this might be a good idea
or to allow it to happen. There also seems to also be a great
denial of how badly misinformed the public is among activists
and politicians alike.
7.
On
November 24, 2020, the plan that the Elgin City Council decided upon was
to use a City of Elgin landing page and a public
Facebook page for the two-way forum for people to openly discuss the climate
emergency. The hope is that any person
from the public will be able to express their views and concerns and discuss
these very important and complex issues openly.
So this at least is moving forward, but usage of
Facebook for these discussions has been basically non-existant.
If there is significant traffic, down the
road the City of Elgin may design a dedicated “forum” page to handle multiple
threads of discussion around this topic, at least that is what they agreed.
But there has been basically non-existent discussion on the Facebook page.
8.
The pace of
change is way too slow.
I
had been pursuing an effort I call the “#5 effort” (from our
list of efforts) to
speed up the pace of change, but this is an almost completely impossible task
in the current political climate, although the Mayor could make it happen right
away, if he took it upon himself to take this on, through the
executive order process. The Climate Emergency Work Group has very
little say in the official business of the City of Elgin, and by the time
anything trickles up to the Elgin City Council, it could be years.
For a while I strived to work directly with Elgin City Council member
Carolyn Rauschenberger, who is the liaison
between the Elgin Sustainability Commission and the Elgin City Council, and
Corey Dixon, who is the only member of the Elgin City Council so far that
actually reached out directly to me. I
have been told by Rick Kozal (the City Manager), and
Tom Armstrong (the Elgin Sustainability Commission chairman and also the Elgin
Sustainability Commission presiding officer in the Elgin Climate Emergency Work
Group) that any type of speed up or streamlining of this process has to go
through Elgin City Council. But so far
there doesn't appear to be any will among Elgin City Council to make this
happen, and Carol Rauschenberger never got back to me
after the initial phone call, and Corey Dixon just criticized me on lack of
political technique but had no notion to change anything about the system in place
or pace itself or that the urgency of the climate emergency was any more urgent
than other crises they discuss routinely.
However, we thought
were able to see that the Elgin Sustainability
Commission approved
draft #7 of the
first message at their November 10, 2020 meeting that we would like to send to
the citizens of Elgin as a valid message, but I finally realized on July 8, 2021 that
the letter they published is not the same letter.
The message they published has been subtly
and
it was only put on an obscure link on the web and not on city letterhead.
As such, it is probably a safe bet that only a few people saw it and fewer still cared.but
significantly
watered down to the point of ineffectiveness
The Direct Mailer and Public Forum Idea
The Direct Mailer idea
is that the main effort to resolve the Climate Emergency at this phase is
a much more intensive education and public involvement campaign. We can't
expect one small department of a city to solve this entire problem by itself. If
we can successfully engage and include more people from the community, then
more people, resources, money, and effort can be utilized to solve this
problem.
The
idea is this would start with regular mailers from the City, such as in same
envelope as the Water Bill, and also information on bulletin boards in
libraries, schools, and government buildings.
Our first mailer idea is this
“draft #7”
that
contains all the components that I am describing below.
The
key is that this information would be coming from an authoritative source, meaning
the City, and not just some “fringe environmental group” like Sierra Club or
Greenpeace which is respected by some people but not by a much larger number of
people who consider themselves more practical-minded.
Also,
it seems that even people that are aware of the Climate Emergency are still not
aware of the urgency of what needs to be done to actually address it or
the small amount of time we have to address it (see Why Climate Emergency
below).
When
it comes to more serious measures such as gasoline taxes, banning of fracking,
and banning of natural gas connections on new housing, we will hit a brick wall
if we don't first get the public more on board with our program, such as what
happened in Seattle with the banning of natural gas connections, which got
seriously blocked.
For
that to work, I think you will need to be sending out careful letters and
E-mails to all the people in the city
such as this one
that has not been sent yet (also known as “draft #7”) explaining
the urgency of this effort and the necessity for certain sacrifices to be made
of the public and expenditures to be made to avert the crisis.
If
these letters and E-mails are not sent out to the entire public, I think we
will hit a brick wall when we arrive at more aggressive and ambitious measures,
because there will not be enough consensus and opposition will come from many
areas.
In
support of my argument that we need to do much more work on education of the
entire city,
this article
regarding an initiative in Seattle is instructive for showing why this effort
is necessary.
In
this article, you can read the story about how Seattle 350 was making great
strides making Seattle more sustainable, but when they came to a measure to
stop natural gas in all new housing developments (#6 on our list as
well), they hit a brick wall.
That
is because corporations started their own aggressive media blitz campaign,
fighting hard against them using lies and misinformation, and defeated their
ability to make progress, and there was not sufficient back-pressure from the
public to fight against the corporate-led initiative to keep them from
defeating this greenhouse gas preventing bill.
That
is why I think we need to lay groundwork and education to the people in the
city (the public, corporations, the churches, and the politicians) so that when
we start introducing more ambitious and aggressive measures such as no natural
gas in new heating installations, no fracking, etc., then we will be able to
overcome the opposition that is sure to crop up.
I
believe the mailers must have 3 components:
1.
That the problem is urgent and must be dealt with now (within much less
than a year!) We cannot afford to focus
on just 1 crisis (such as the pandemic or racism or economic inequality or
housing) but need to spend significant time on addressing the educational and
cultural component that keeps holding us back from addressing a very real
threat to all of us and our shared future.
In addressing this, I think we will naturally have to come together and
become a more cooperative society anyway, and many other problems will be
solved as well.
2.
That we are serious and we have a realistic plan to address this. There
is my Action Plan which
addresses many facets of the crisis including society, culture, and the
economy, or the Indigenous
Environmental Network's Regenerative Economy plan
, to
name, in my opinion, two of the most realistic plans that are out there that
take into consideration a wider variety of considerations than normal plans
that I've seen in my opinion.
Indigenous
people have actual, real-world experience with sustainable living and have much
wisdom that we would be foolish to disregard.
However,
I believe the actual solution to this problem that we will actually adopt will
be a synthesis of many ideas and solutions from many people from many walks of
life.
I
don't believe any one group of people by itself will be able to solve this.
3.
We must start to have extremely frequent two-way public meetings, forums, or
virtual discussions so that we can arrive at consensus and figure out how
we will actually resolve it. These should be free and open and involve
education, debate, and problem-solving.
Why Climate Emergency?
This
Climate Emergency is
man-made
and
can be reversed with
timely action
.
This
action must be done on a
local level
before
we can make a global difference.
If
this problem is ignored for
more than a year
, there
could be a non-existent future for our kids.
There
has been gross
mis-information
and
mis-representation in
mass-media about this problem.
Every
day,
an average of 200
more species become extinct.
The
World Bank said
“there is also no
certainty that adaptation to a 4 degree C world is possible”
), and
the
Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change AR4 synopsis says “unmitigated
climate change would, in the long term, be likely to exceed the capacity of
natural, managed and human systems to adapt.”
A
couple of years ago, the United Nations
warned we only had 11 years left to seriously make changes and emit far less
greenhouse gases globally or the consequences will be
catastrophic. That may even be optimistic considering tipping points may
be closer than we
think.
This article says
we have less than a year to act states exactly this: “The stimulus packages
created this year will determine the shape of the global economy for the next
three years, according to Birol, and within
that time emissions must start to fall sharply and permanently or climate
targets will be out of reach.”
If
you re-read the bold portion above, you will see That it indicates
that if within a year's time if we do not cause emissions to fall sharply and
permanently, then the climate targets will be out of reach, meaning very likely
catastrophe and passed tipping points, which could make the surface of the
planet inhospitable to life.
It
is also instructive to note that the title of the article is “World has six
months to avert climate crisis, says energy expert”.
If
you have not read this already, you should also read this article from
the Union of Concerned Scientists: In this article, it says “
the message of the science is that we have consistently underestimated the
magnitude and speed of ecological impacts in the past, and that new and
alarming feedbacks, tipping points and thresholds continue to be revealed as we
learn more.”
In
addition, we have heard of trillions of locusts in Africa which is another sign
that our eco-systems are in danger and that we are running out of time.
Also,
in 2020, we saw 12 million people forced out of their homes in
India, Nepal, and Bangladesh due to severe monsoons, floods, and
landslides caused by global warming, and in 2021 it has been
Germany and China hit by devastating floods,
and out-of-control wildfires in Siberia, Turkey, and Greece.
the worst derecho in Iowa damaging 10 million acres of farmland,
the hottest temperature on Earth recorded in Death Valley (130 deg F),
the first ever fire tornados in California,
year six of intense drought and crop failure in Central America,
and 15 million people with food and water shortages in Africa.
How long are we going to let conditions get worse and worse and the causes
of global warming go unchecked?
Climate Emergency Direct Mailer and Public Forum Project
My
principle idea is to get everybody synchronized and to tell the truth about the
problem so that the people can get coordinated and working on a solution
through mailers, bulletin boards in libraries, government buildings, schools,
etc.
Without
everyone being onboard with the changes needed to secure our long-term
survival, there will be too much resistance to the changes that are needed,
some of which will require far-reaching lifestyle and cultural changes on the
part of Americans who value their freedom and independence and will need to be
convinced that these changes are necessary.
I
don't believe online methods or social media by itself is effective enough to
get the entire community into consensus, as not as many people actually subscribe
to all-encompassing online communities as one might think, from my experience.
Mailers
that go to all residents of a city that also come from the city have an
authoritative quality that show this is coming directly from the city and that
we are serious with this and this is no longer something that doesn't concern
everybody.
One
of the first changes demanded by the Indigenous people is an immediate ban on
Fracking. I don't see this change in any other plan from any other source from
current leadership except for groups that are just focused on banning Fracking
as their sole issue such as Food and Water Watch.
This
indicates how many leaders and people changing policy are underestimating the
problem or unable to tackle the problem as a whole and need the help from those
who are truly knowledgeable and informed, and not just college educated.
It
also indicates how the leaders are still focusing on small, easy-to-change
ordinances rather than looking ahead to the big changes that we actually need.
The new
Biden-Sanders plan is also woefully inadequate and also more of a ruse to
further the ends of the oil and gas industry unchecked
and
get people to vote for Biden, who is more environmentally friendly than Trump,
but does not appear to be smart enough to bring the world out of the climate
emergency.
Under
our current coarse, we are projected to reach over 7 degrees C global
warming,
which would make
much of life on Earth completely impossible according to
an overwhelming
majority of climate scientists world-wide.
However,
it has been shown that we can turn our course from this with swift action to
end fossil fuels, transform agriculture, end dependence on meat, pesticides,
plastics, etc. within the next few years, but it must be done swiftly, so we
must act now.
This
is also not just about the warming but also the devastation and damage to our
eco-systems that support life. It is possible, for example, that if all life in
the oceans die off, that all life on the planet will die off, because of
relationships between these things in the eco-systems that support life that we
don't fully understand.
350.org
has been warning about these tipping points for years and we are dreading that
we may reach a tipping point from which we will never return.
Therefore,
we must act swiftly and decisively and we must act now. The Union of Concerned
Scientists
notes that we have
consistently under-estimated the magnitude and speed of ecological impacts
.
I
think this is a very complex problem, entangled within our economy, our
churches, our culture, our mass-media-enforced implicit “way of life” and
corresponding implicit understanding that we have certain, inalienable rights
to act in ways that are actually quite unsustainable, and some of which are
quite oppressive to outsiders.
One
thing that I believe that the leadership is ignoring is the power of the
people. If we can better inform the people about the real issues surrounding
the climate crisis, then they we will all be better able to move forward.
Part
of the problem with informing the people are the
immense amount of
money spent by private interests connected with the oil and gas companies on
misinformation campaigns.
There
is also evidence being presented that even
the US Chamber of
Commerce itself may be one of the biggest groups involved in these
misinformation campaigns that greatly confuses the public at large and goads
them into ignoring this cataclysmic emergency that is looming in our near future.
There
is a flawed analysis that tries to analyze this effort of a Direct Mailer in
terms of Traditional Advertising and deduce that this effort is not effective.
However,
that analysis is flawed because this is not selling anything at all and
is not the same thing as trying to sell yet another product that people don't
need and can't afford.
It
is anticipated that this effort will garner much more interest because it is
truly not selling anything and it is coming directly from the city and not just
another merchant.
At
the end of the day, I don't see how a municipality can say at the outset that
this effort would never work or be counterproductive if they never even
tried it. This type of effort has never
before been tried to my knowledge in any municipality.
If
the argument is that this creating too much paper trash, then we really need
to stop sending out library newsletters as well and place strict ordinances
on what money-driven merchants are sending in the mail.
A majority of the other measures cannot be implemented
until the Direct Mailers (or some other effective form of mass education)
begin to get implemented first, in my opinion.
That
is because the other measures will immediately encounter significant opposition
as happened in Seattle (as discussed above).
Opposing private interests will simply employ their own marketing
techniques, with ample supply of money, to manipulate the public into inaction.
Very few people are going to copy a link that is written down on paper
into their Internet browser if they don't first understand why it is so
important. It is much more effective if
the whole message is intact in one place before the people's eyes.
Despite all this, the Elgin Sustainability Commission at their last
meeting, on November 10, 2020, agreed to also go ahead with the Water Bill idea
using a much stripped down version of the message that
is 151 words,
but only to home owners with water bills and only if no other message was
on the bill. The stripped down message did not however convey the
proper urgency and seemed largely ineffective in making any changes in Elgin
as far as I could tell.
I agree that we need to try as many things as possible but I don't
understand why we can't go forward with the more effective Direct Mailer
approach and not have to reduce the impact or words of our message (the
draft #7 which they also vaguely approved
an inferior version of at the same November 10, 2020 meeting).
I don't understand why we are gambling with less effective forms of
communication on an issue that is so important that it affects the lives of all
of our children and all human beings in the future.
I had sent a
letter
to
the Mayor and the 9-member Elgin City Council about this on October 14, 2020.
On November 11, 2020, Corey Dixon, a member
of Elgin City Council, did send an E-mail asking if anyone had sent a response
yet (in the month since I had sent the letter), to which I said no, which is
true.
On November 18, 2020, I spoke with Corey Dixon on the phone.
He told me that ultimately the decision about
the Direct Mailer and the speed up of the process rests with Elgin City
Council. I said that I agree that they
have the power to make the decision, but I wasn't sure if they were really
considering all of the aspects of this and I wanted to make sure they were
making a clear-headed decision and have fully considered all sides of the
argument. From what I have heard so far,
it is very unclear that this is the case. I don't like that they argue about
these matters behind closed doors and then present their one-sided arguments at
the Elgin Sustainability Commission meeting and almost completely dominate the
less than 15 minutes a month that they spend on all Climate Action Work Group issues
at the Elgin Sustainability Commission meeting without substantial public discussion.
Corey Dixon said that I need to get in touch with Elgin City Council
member Carol Rauschenberger directly who is the
official liaison between the Elgin City Council and the Elgin Sustainability
Commission.I sent her an E-mail on
November 19, 2020 saying that I would like to talk to her.
On November 21, 2020, I talked to Carol Rauschenberger
on the telephone specifically about 3 things: (1) the #5 issue (speeding up the
pace of change), (2) the arguments in support of the Direct Mailer approach and
why traditional marketing analyses do not apply, and (3) the breakdown of
communication where we speak at great length to Tom Armstrong
but nobody above him ever hears anything we talk about. Regarding #3, this was confirmed on this call
because all of the things I was telling her seemed like brand new news to her
even though I've been talking about these things with Tom Armstrong in meetings for many months prior.
This does indicate that having an advisory
group (Climate Emergency Group) to an advisory group (Sustainability Commission)
usually has very little sway over Elgin City Council, especially since
everything gets filtered by a representative of each group who may or may not share
the same enthusiasm for the idea.
She confirmed that the Direct Mailer ($50,000 request or $13,000
request) was not planned or anticipated in the 2021 budget.
I asked whether she would champion or advocate
this idea and she said she would think about it and get back to me, but never did get back to me,
although I attempted contact a number of times.
It is ironic that the City of Elgin will wholeheartedly spend half a
million dollars on renovations to the Gym at the Center, without any type of
public discussion about it, but they refuse to spend $13,000 on an education
campaign on a topic that could potentially be so important that if ignored
could render our entire species extinct.
Carol Rauschenberger (as well as many other
members of the City Council and Sustainability Commission) have their own ideas
about how to approach the problem, through an on-staff
Sustainability Officer, a GHG baseline assessment conducted yearly, a brainstorming
program called Future Search where they hope to draft a new Sustainability
Plan, and some scattered efforts to improve recycling, composting, solar power adoption,
and other less extensive and less intrusive improvements, and will probably
spend most of their time on those efforts, which I feel are far insufficient
from addressing the issue, unless there is significant public pressure and
advocacy otherwise.
Carol Rauschenberger, who was the gatekeeper to the Elgin City Council for environmental issues, never returned any of my phone calls after our first initial phone conversation even though she said she would get back to me, which she never did. Corey Dixon told me that I needed to be nicer to politicians and that they had many important issues on their plate and that this was just another issue not any more important than any other issue. Many of the activists and government officials in the City of Elgin seemed to feel put off by my political style as if I was directly insulting them personally and I guess I just don't know how to play the political game that well, especially in Elgin. I guess in order to get through to them, you have to think like them, talk like them, and act like them. In my defense, I was never trying to insult anyone just trying to solve a very serious and difficult problem caused by living our unsustainable lifestyles for far too long.
On December 20, 2020, members of the Elgin Climate Emergency Workgroup were informed that Elgin has gone forward with placing the letter to Elgin residents regarding the seriousness of the climate emergency and what to do about it which is a similar but watered down version as our draft #7 that was deceitfully approved by the Elgin Sustainability Commission at the November 10, 2020 meeting (they said it was the same letter but it is not the same letter), and not even city letterhead. There is a link to this modified letter on the new City of Elgin Climate landing page when you click on the graphic on the right that says “Letter to Residents”.
Also, the City of Elgin Climate landing page does not adeqeuately address the criticisms of the first draft that I sent out on November 24, 2020, namely:
1. Does not adequately cover the most recent UN/IPCC warning in 2018 that says that we must reduce GHG emissions by 50% in the next 11 years or face disastrous consequences.
The landing page sets a goal of 2050 to reach net zero emissions, which is making the same mistake that almost every mainstream environmentalist is doing which is to downplay the urgency of the situation and this will result in continued inaction for years to come which is exactly according to the agenda of the oil and gas industry.
It would also be beneficial to point out to the people the simple math that if the whole world needs to achieve 50% reduction in GHG emissions by 2029, then the United States as a whole must do so much sooner since the United States is a global leader and after making the changes within our own country, we are going to have to learn to lead the way for the rest of the world.
If we are not going to inform the public of the whole truth, then the effort is counter-productive.
If there are those reading this who think it is impossible to reach this goal, then we need to discuss that too, and see how we can come as close as possible to this goal, and include the public in the discussion. I am tired of the global elites thinking they can work everything out in behind closed door think tanks that are not open to the public and to real honest objective criticism.
I have a plan which you can read about under Action Plan on this website, and I agree with the Indigenous people in letting them become stewards of our land again. The reality of the situation is that sustainability will require deep changes and we need to start preparing the American people for this right away.
2. This landing page also needs to have a forum as we have been discussing where anybody from the public can log in and discuss matters related to the climate change and have free and open discussion about the matter and what we must do about it.
Note: this is somewhat addressed: they are pointing people to the Elgin Sustainability page on Facebook for a public forum where people can discuss this, but discussion has been largely non-existent so far.
At least Elgin is going down a middle path of Water Bills and Library Mailers
and going forward with the web site and Facebook as a possible forum to discuss
citywide environmental issues, although it appears so far this is not heavily
used yet.
My principle idea is to get everybody synchronized and to tell the
truth about the problem and to talk openly about the problem so that the people
can get coordinated and working on a solution through mailers, bulletin boards
in libraries, government buildings, schools, and public meetings.
In other news, in Lake County Illinois they
passed
a resolution to
try to cut Greenhouse Gas emissions in Lake County by 50% by 2030.
In August of 2021 there was the Budget Engagement Forum hosted by Mayor of Chicago Lori Lightfoot where people spoke on issues that concerned them about the community and the budget. Paul Berland spoke at this meeting to discuss that more budget should be given towards education surrounding the climate emergency, especially in light that so many people were still using things like gas powered leaf blowers, and Lori Lightfoot said this was a good idea and that she liked the ideas. So Paul resumed the discussion with Matt Martin's office on September 8, 2021, Michael Sewall of Matt Martin's office said that he did not like the idea of a direct mailer and public forum but to contact the 48th Ward office where Paul now lives.
On September 9, 2021
this E-mail was
sent to the 47th Ward of Chicago, copying the 1st Ward, and Mayor Lori Lightfoot, to continue to try
to get the effort of a Direct Mailer worked into the 2022 budget. Mayor Lori Lightfoot
said at a Budget Engagement Forum in August that she liked these ideas, but the 2022 budget from her
office passed without any money or consideration of a Direct Mailer and representative Michael
Sewall of the 47th Ward said that he had talked with the office of the mayor about the idea
and Michael didn't think it was a good idea, so it is apparently not in the 2022 Chicago budget.
(Several additional E-mails were also sent after that to the 47th Ward and all of those were also ignored.)
The lack of responsiveness of our elected representatives is an Ethics violation in the City of
Chicago, but the Attorney General keeps all ethics investigations completely confidential, and would not divulge whether they would pursue penalties.
All of the E-mails to Aldermen of the City of Chicago and to Lori Lightfoot's mayoral office, the
Budget Engagement Forum, and posts to We Will Chicago were without fruit as the final budgets for the City of Chicago have consistently been missing any funds for the badly needed education from a trusted, authoritative
source.
I sent an E-mail around to the Aldermen of the 1st, 47th, and 48th Wards
“Final Death Knell for the Planet Earth” (with correction) which explains that this situation is
being handled badly right now.
(To truly understand how bad it is, one really needs to do research on global warming and climate change that is not commonly
disseminated information.)
On September 14, 2021, I also wrote this E-mail to Alderman Harry Osterman of the 48th Ward to see if he could help with the climate emergency education of the people of Chicago, but he was not very interested and did not extend a single cent of budget for the effort. He referred me to Alderman Cardenas to see if we could get some budget for this, but Cardena's office decided not to help either. He also referred me to the Edgewater Environmental Coalition, and starting on January 25, 2022, contact was made with them, but they have offered very limited support.
Samira Hanessian, speaking on behalf of the entire City of Chicago Environmental Staff, said they were going to allocate 0 budget for mailers and education and public forums for the city of Chicago. Lori Lightfoot had said in the Budget Engagement Forum in August 2021 that she liked the idea, but perhaps that was just politics because there does not appear to be any movement on this effort anywhere within the City of Chicago leadership. They decided to spend 0 dollars after all on education of the great city of Chicago from the more than 1 billion dollars they received in aid from the government.
Alderman Osterman did ask me to send him a sample mailer (which I did) ( here is the sample letter geared towards Chicago) and a list of ordinance proposals that would help with this effort (which I did, including some of the newer ideas such as banning unnecessary gas powered leaf blowers (using an ordinary garden rake is about the same effort and doesn't use any fossil fuels)) ( here is the most recent, updated list of ordinance proposals).
The successor to Harry Osterman in the 48th Ward, Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth, was not any more helpful either. They led me on saying they were interested in elevating my concerns, but ended up handing me off to a string of different personnel who kept deflecting and avoiding what I was working on and the urgency that I kept bringing up, and eventually stopped returning my E-mails.
As of 2024, nobody in the City of Chicago staff has indicated any willingness to move on the effort of mailers, massive education campaigns, or public forums, from 5 wards and from the City's Environmental Committee. Letters had been sent to all 50 wards earlier, and 5 wards were contacted directly, but Samira Hanessian of the Chicago City Environmental Committee, speaking on behalf of the city's enviornmental committee, said they were not putting any money or resources into this effort. Letters to the mayors Lori Lightfoot and Brandon Johnson resulted in no response. Extensive communications with the 48th Ward have fizzled out - they kept redirecting to different personnel and there was just no real interest in accomplishing the goals of mailers or public forums. Participatory budget forms were filled out, city budget meetings attended and spoken at, but no fruit from any of it.
On 7 dates in 2022, every single week of 2023 on Sundays, and every single week in the entire first half of 2024 (until May 1st) I've been out on the street corner trying to get people interested in a Chicago Sustainability Forum.
For a public forum to be truly successful, it needs to have support from communities, but also mainly governments, because without authoritative backing, efforts in the communities are largely considered insignificant.
Last Update: April 15, 2024