Which SF Mayoral Candidates Are Ready for Climate Change?
The City is a snared fox when it comes to climate change, but in this stormy election it’s taken a backseat. Which mayoral candidates can competently handle the climate crisis and which ones will let corporations steal the thunder?
In City Hall, we need a politician who can cooperate with other cities that share our bayfront, lead all our agencies to be climate-forward, and find her footing fast as flooding, extreme heat, and blackouts hit the Bay.
Lurie Looks To Tech
Big Tech promises it will help us adapt all while sucking up more power than we can sustain. The Mayor’s office will continue being caught in the middle. Some climate tech companies suggest it might be a false dichotomy.
Daniel Lurie, a businessman who ran a nonprofit, says that although AI has a carbon problem, it “can be utilized to develop new technologies that help us transition away from energy infrastructure that is dependent on fossil fuels to one that is environmentally sustainable.” All aboard the AI hype train.
Although Lurie’s nonprofit is named Tipping Point, the word for when we’ve passed the point of no return on destroying Mother Earth, the nonprofit is not at all climate focused. Based on his positions in other places, he will likely look to nonprofit and industry to solve the problem rather than government (which he has no experience in). If Lurie lands in the mayoral seat, there will be no onboarding or trial runs. This is it. Climate change is here, so he’d better know what the job entails.
Flooding: ‘Water’ we Facing Now With Mayor Breed?
The incumbent, Mayor London Breed, has led with the Climate Action Plan and clean energy initiatives. But when a civil grand jury said San Francisco is not dealing with the toxic contamination in Hunter’s Point and Bayview, her office responded that some of the recommendations were not “warranted or reasonable.”
On New Year’s Eve the mayor was accused of partying while The City flooded. The timing was unfortunate and the media loves to jump on the misogynoir trend. After that, another grand jury released the excellently-named Come Hell or High Water, a report saying that money and transparency are the key issues when it comes to addressing flooding. In Mayor Breed’s response there, she points out lots of places where she’s been putting in the work to get us ready for a more volatile climate.
Maybe this is an overly generous look at Mayor Breed’s climate record, but at least she’s actually written and enacted policy on it.
The Bay: Peskin
If you know nothing about politics, you’d still probably know that Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin is a Bay swimmer because he kind of doesn’t shut up about it. The Bay is vulnerable to pollution and climate change, so with Peskin’s habit he has literal skin in the game. In 2020, the SF League of Conservation Voters called him an environmental stalwart whose “breadth of experience is unmatched on the Board as well as his knowledge of procedure and possibility.”
Reporting from The Frisc suggests there’s more to the story. Nobody’s perfect, and Peskin has been in government longer than some of the trees in our neighborhoods have been alive. You can find almost anything in the man’s record to prop up whatever you want to say about him, but the widely accepted truth is that Peskin cares about the planet, and that’s what we’re focused on here.
Safe with Safai
With Mayor Breed, Supervisor Safai pushed The City to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions. He plants trees. There’s not a lot to say on this candidate because instead of highlighting his role as a champion of the environment, he’s mostly stuck to his labor background as he fights for the top job.
Farrell
To be blunt, we don’t expect much from Farrell. His supporters have clearly told him they don’t care about climate change, and it looks like he’s listened. He has barely mentioned it since Earth Day came and went in April.
Climate change and tribal sovereignty are inherently connected. Mark Farrell suggests letting rich developers bypass tribal consultation on new development on the Bay, which could potentially harm the delicate ecosystem. Plus he wants cars back on Market Street. When this guy waves to Mother Earth, is he using all his fingers or just one?
Putting an Ice Cap on It
If you care about climate change, look closer at each candidate’s policies. But don’t stop there. Tell them this is an issue for you, because right now none of the candidates explicitly name climate change as a priority. Safety this, housing that, but what does any of that matter if the earth is uninhabitable?
Howdy! My name is Katy Atchison and I'm an Associate Editor for Broke-Ass Stuart.
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