Concern:  Climate change is no longer a theory. It is here, right now. As a City, we must make immediate and significant changes to our lives to ensure that the lives of those who follow us can be healthy and successful.

 

Why a Solution Isn’t Easy: It is many of our life choices that have created these environmental and climate concerns. Our car-dependent lifestyles, our reliance on inexpensive consumer goods, and the sizes of our homes. All of these have impacts that we are all now beginning to grasp. These impacts are unsustainable but it will be hard for us to unwind from our current world.

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Steps toward a Solution

 

Much like social justice, every step taken in the future must include viewing the issues through a lens of environmental/climate issues.

 

That awareness must also come with a ticking clock.  Many communities have established aggressive climate goals for 2030 or 2035. But those goals have come without the recognition that action must be taken today if those goals are to be achieved.  If a homeowner replaces a broken gas furnace today with a new gas furnace, the new furnace will still be pumping out carbon dioxide in 2035, undermining the goals we’ve set.

 

Similarly, an internal combustion engine automobile sold today may well remain on the road in 2035.

 

The Climate Action Commission has already begun a framework for addressing climate concerns.  The Council must encourage them to work as quickly as possible and to understand the urgency with which their recommendations must be applied.

 

Lastly, I will remain constantly aware of the interaction of environmental and climate action with all three of my key platform planks: Housing, Transportation, and Economic Vitality.

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