By 2050 we are virtually certain to see around ~ 3 feet of sea level rise. Sounds fine, right? You've got a cool condo in the Castro, elevation 200 feet. No problem.
Must be nice. Here's 101 in Mill Valley with 3 feet of sea level rise. The red part is underwater:
Here's Larkspur/Corte Madera:
Here's San Rafael:
Here's 680 by the Coliseum:
Here's 101 past SFO:
Here's ... well, 101 down most of the Peninsula:
And of course, the sea level rise sleeper beach town, Stockton, California.
These amounts of coastal/waterway inundation are basically locked in by mid-century. We already can't stop this from happening.
So, keep doing all that great work watching out for "the working class" who simply must drive cars to work in San Francisco from ...
Marin City (underwater), San Rafael (underwater), Stockton (underwater), Vallejo (underwater), East Palo Alto (underwater), Coliseum (etc.)
I get it, it's not your problem, you'd rather just let those damn kids figure it out.
The thing to know about Democratic Party politics that nobody seems to have raised, so, I will:
The structure of the United States’ federal republic is an abomination. The Senate is a deeply evil institution, designed by horrible people to prevent democratic governance.
🧵
How does this relate to D-party politics? Well, in functioning democracies, voters elect parties that have platforms, then those parties work to enact those platforms.
And since real democracies — i.e., countries with no Senate (almost all of them) — allow parties to compete …
… parties form coalitions that represent giant blocks of voters to craft a majority, compromise among themselves where necessary, then, enact what’s left of the platform.
But what if you have a fascist institution embedded in the structure of your government — like a Senate?
Something lost in the whole “but there’s no transit where I live!” is utterly massive cost violent drivers impose on society via under-insurance & very low maximums:
You could go outside, get hit by a violent driver, maimed for life, and not only would they go free but
… their insurance would only pay $50,000 of your million-dollar medical bills (and lifetime of medical care).
So now you’re also destitute and living off medicaid, which is, to an under-reported degree, one of the largest car industry subsidies in the United States.
America is ripe for fascism specifically because of this incredibly high tolerance for driver violence, massive government apparatus to incentivize and subsidize their violence, and the writing off and denigration of victims.
Over the holiday weekend I met a woman who works for forest service in Nevada City, California. We got to chatting about fire risk, as one does.
She noted that her county -- like every other California county -- is still approving new homes in areas ...
the forest service is very, very sure will burn, and that those new homes make it increasingly impossible to manage the forest for future fires:
To manage fire, you have to burn the forest. But if you put homes there, you can't. It's already nearly physically impossible ...
... to treat California's forests, due to the extreme slopes and remoteness of most forest lands. Sprinkle them with homes and humans, and just about all you can do is sit back and pray.
And worse: The non-burn methods needed to treat high-risk forests -- mechanical thinning ...
Last night I attended a 3-hour transportation commission hearing about removing 5 parking spots from a public street to build a new protected bike lane next to a massive new infill housing project at a BART station.
There were ~ 45 people there.
15 of the attendees were staff for the city, for BART, and consultants.
15 of the people were NIMBYs who mistakenly think the parking “belongs to them.”
And 15 were people who are tired of driver violence and want protected bike lanes so we’re not assaulted or killed.
The staff time alone cost easily $10,000. But then, they had to prepare documents and presentations and drawings and print notices and flyers and etc. So, let’s say $50,000.
This is over 5 parking spots on a public street.
Then consider: The 15 NIMBYs who’ve come to expect …