We need to ‘drawdown Eugene’ now
As your next City Councilor I will ensure we take every opportunity we have to cut emissions. We have an opportunity right now – Natural Gas.
To be accountable to our CAP 2 plan, we need to cut carbon emissions by 50% by 2030. Gas emissions are 8X what electricity emissions are. When elected, THIS city councilor will have the backbone to say no new pipelines. No new natural gas in new construction. No natural gas for city projects.
NWNG is trying to position itself as a green company, but they don’t have the capacity for biomass and they aren’t going to, so requiring NW Natural to switch to biogas and renewable hydrogen just delays the inevitable. They advertise heavily to people to switch to natural gas. They have 0 incentive to stop selling their product. Because it’s their only product. And their customers – like the city of Eugene – still buy it.
We need to stop buying and using fossil fuels. We need to reduce greenhouse emissions swiftly and as your City Councilor, I will work hard to protect Earth’s atmosphere and natural systems for present and future generations.
A successful Climate Action Plan must incorporate as many strategies for reducing emissions as outlined in the book Drawdown, by Paul Hawken; and the Green New Deal (a Congressional resolution for tackling climate change).
As your City Councilor, I will advocate that we do all we can to protect Earth’s atmosphere and natural systems for present and future generations. We need to reduce greenhouse emissions starting NOW.
I will insist that we:
- Incentivize residential and commercial rooftop solar, distributed storage, micro grids
- Incentivize net-zero energy construction
- Increase use of active transportation and transit
- Increase carbon sequestration offsets
- Incorporate recommendations from the Equity Panel
- Create a Climate Accountability Board and/or hire a Climate Auditor
We need to start ‘Drawdown Eugene’ immediately, with timelines, actionable steps, accountability; and a budget that gets us to our goals. The clock is ticking. We have only 11 years to shift humanity’s trajectory toward an uninhabitable earth.
