I often present at the Fairfax Town Council, on topics of interest to the Climate. One of the things I talk about a lot is the issue of needing to electrify our buildings. 

Often, when I talk about that, people react, and talk about their gas fired stoves, and how they don't like electric stoves. (There are a lot of other things to be concerned about too - we will address them another time). 

I recently came across this website from the California Air Resource Board (click here) that talks about the health hazards of natural gas appliances in our homes. It includes the video shown above, from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories (they are scientists, not filmmakers!) documenting some of these issues. I will write another time about the BENEFITS of electric stoves over gas ones, but I thought this would be helpful information, and could help us all stay safer (confession, MY stove is gas!) and healthier while we still have the old, electric ones. 

Also, I want to remind everybody about the Sustainable Fairfax Climate Chats. These are short, video (so you don't have to travel) zoom-meetings focused on easy how-to tips for becoming more sustainable. Next month, they will be having a really exciting 4-part series on how to plan to electrify your home so it DOESN'T break the bank. Click here for more information. I hope to see you all there. 

One last thought. The Town of San Anselmo has recently challenged the Town of Fairfax, to see which town can sign up the most new participants in Deep Green. This is the 100% renewable electricity program. I will also be writing more about that at another time. For now, i hope you will help a friend to get signed up with Deep Green. We can save the planet, and beat San Anselmo at the same time; whats not to like about that! 

And, if you need help with any of this let us know. 

And, we need new Board Members! So please come and join us and let's help Fairfax become the icon of the environment. 

Just like the people on the CAC, the people at Sustainable Fairfax are volunteers -   people who are our neighbors, spending their time trying to help us all make the world a little bit better. 

One thing that many of us are experiencing during these virus times is that we are working on our houses, we are receiving Amazon packages, we are generating - a LOT of waste. 

When we, at the Town, look at our carbon footprint, we generate more than 2000 tons of carbon from our collective trash. For us to achieve our carbon goals, we are going to need to continue to maximize our recycling. BUT, recycling is not a trivial exercise anymore. Knowing how to do it right takes a bit of attention. (In all honesty, i cant tell you the number of times i have tried to recycle some piece of plastic, THINKING it was recyclable, only to discover from my more informed partner of the error of my ways). 

Sustainable Fairfax has put together a great line-up of classes that will help people think about how you can start to take these steps. The chats are short and snappy, and a great way to get to know other people in town. 

I hope as many people as possible can take advantage of this opportunity, and I look forward to meeting you there! (Click here to learn more)

And, please join us at the CAC; we always need more talent and energy, and please join the Sustainable Fairfax team. Together, we can make a difference. 

Sometimes, people worry about the cost of transitioning to cleaner energy sources. 

Of course, cost can certainly be a challenge, depending on how you do it. One piece of good news came out recently in terms of financial assistance from PG&E. (Click here for the PG&E website on this). (By the way, the little picture above is from the PG&E website, and it sows a house with solar panels - the house does not need solar panels to get the money - don't be worried about that picture). 

Basically, PG&E is offering to put in batteries for free, for customers who need them for medical reasons, or who live in low-income residential housing. We have mentioned on this blog several times the close connection between improving our environment and social equity concerns, and this is a great opportunity to address both in a meaningful way. 

PG&E also requires that the home be located in a Tier 2 or Tier 3 fire zone, and, looking at the CPUC map, almost all of Fairfax is in one of these two zones. 

These batteries help with climate by helping people to ride through power outages without relying on gas generators, which burn fossil fuels. 

The Town of Fairfax would greatly benefit if everyone living here in who qualifies gets one of these grants. The CAC is just a bunch of volunteers, but we will try to help people who need it, to get access to this money. 

And, either way, please sign up for MCE Deep Green, which is the single most impactful and least expensive thing we can do in the immediate time-frame, to drive down our collective emissions. 

Thank you all!

The Town Council for the Town of Fairfax has, rightly, recognized, and declared that we are in a Climate Emergency. Bernie Sanders famously reminded us that the Climate Crisis - and crisis it is - is an Existential Crisis. 

The Town Council has declared that we should come together and find ways to drive our collective greenhouse gas emissions to zero, over the next ten years. 

I am writing this as the chair of the Town's Climate Action Committee; the group charged by the Town Council with helping to develop strategies that can get us there. 

Obviously, changing our collective way of life, dependent as it is on the addictive opiod of fossil fuels, will be difficult. But, it can be done, and if ever there were one community of people who could come together to make it happen, it is Fairfax. 

The CAC is working, now, on an update of our Climate Action Plan. We want to do this in a way that involves as many people from our community as we can. Ours is not an easy task, and it is going to take us all - working, thinking, brainstorming, debating - to find the right path forward. As a CAC we have a great team of volunteers who have been working to create drafts of what we can do, based on our successes to date, and thinking about what other Towns are doing, and what the state and country are doing (or not doing). 

We are considering creating a series of Virtual "Town Halls" to bring us all together to talk about the challenges, and to brainstorm ways we can remind the rest of Marin, the rest of California, the rest of the world, who we are, and what we are capable of. 

We are living through a kind of plague time, so we will have to do this with some kind of virtual, zoom conversation. I am trying to figure out how large a Zoom event we would need to prepare for, so please give us feedback on your interest to participate in something like this. Would you prefer one meeting with virtual break-out rooms, each focused on different topics? One long meeting that talked through different topics? Several short meetings, weekly, maybe, each focused on a different topic? 

Please give us feedback, so we can plan appropriate logistics. This is a critical issue, and the efforts to deal with it will affect every one of us. And so, we believe strongly that we need to bring us all together to listen to one another and to find the best path forward. So, send us your thoughts. 

​And, by the way, SIGN UP FOR MCE DEEP GREEN!