Climate Emergency and Direct Mailer and Public Forum Effort in Chicagoland

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,

 

  1. Not only for humanity and our children, but for myself as well. In my senior years Chicago is going to be a very painful place to live if we don't act with urgency. I 100% believe the tools and policies exist that could decarbonize Chicago's economy and dramatically reduce emissions in the next ten years.
  2. While we're definitely interested in doing broader outreach on our climate change work in the 1st ward, I'm not sure of the path forward on this particular mode. I'll talk to my staff about it though.

 

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.

 

 

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

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
      but significantly
    watered down to the point of ineffectiveness
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.

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.

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 was a link to this modified letter on the City of Elgin Climate landing page (up until 2024, they are in the process now of putting up a new page) when you clicked on the graphic on the right that said “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: September 22, 2024