Thread by @ai6yrham

I've recently become involved in my city's climate planning efforts--asked to add my input into city efforts to develop a climate change mitigation plan. It's been informative, yet, illustrates the dilemma we have in making substantive progress against a very hard problem. 1/x

As someone who has not been engaged in politics (hate conflict, hate sitting in meetings, frustrated by choosing this by consensus vs. the best technical solution, and frustrations of how slow moving it is, disillusionment with politicans), I have dreaded getting involved. 2/x

But, I found that I'm a little "younger" than the typical folks involved in our city planning (not all that young, in my 40's... but still younger than most of those involved)--and I feel I'm pretty informed, especially on the technology front--so I felt I should engage. 3/x

First, the positives: I am discovering there are a lot of folks who have thought about the climate issues a lot more than I have, and for much longer. It's good to see others aware of the issues, and of the solutions, and far more versed at the legal/legislative stuff. 4/x

Also, I'm relieved to find that it's not just a generational thing; many of the folks involved are older, but just as passionate (or perhaps more so) on fixing this problem, realizing it's not a problem for "the grandkids to figure out". 5/x

At it might just be this group, we are not hearing from the folks I typically run into, who either think it's all a Chinese hoax, that it's not our problem, that hate any suggestion of government involvement in helping to solve the climate issues we have. 6/x

However, the negatives I see are many: the biggest I see is time. All of the tools government action uses to "move the mountain" involve lots of time. Zoning laws take a very, very long time to exert their influence, even if they are very influential in the end. 7/x

Incentives are just that--encouragement. Government is not fast. Zoning and other laws take decades to shape a city. Laws are talking about kicking in in 2045, 2050, 2100. We're going to already be in a world of hurt in those time frames. 8/x

Paying for it is a huge, huge, issue. There is no magic wand to pay for the types of changes needed to decarbonize our city. Typically this has been done by enforcing standards on new buildings. The problem is: new buildings are not the problem. Existing ones are. 9/x

A huge chunk of our emissions in our city are transportation driven. Gas used in automobiles. But we can't buy everyone a new EV. And EVs aren't at the point where they work for all situations. And even if we all went EV, charging that many EVs is a huge issue for the grid. 10/

The number of households who would be required to switch from gas to (renewable) electric is astounding in our city; new water heaters, new dryers, new stoves. It will absolutely increase our electricity consumption significantly, even if it's better in terms of emissions. 11/

And, homeowners will have to pay ($$$). Upgrades and new housing is one thing, but existing homes upgrading is another. The blow back from many citizens would be gigantic. 12/

The balance of individual rights vs. what is needed to move the needle is a major conflict. We already saw what happens on this with the 2020 elections, anti-maskers, etc. Any strong move at our city level likely would expose similar issues. 13/

City is talking about building regulations for new buildings -- but, we are mostly built out, and those rules would only apply to a very small number of buildings. That means you need to convince people to change existing stuff paid for and is working fine. Not easy. 14/

There's a few experiments here: Here's Halfmoon Bay's effort smdailyjournal.com/news/local/a-g…

Ultimately, government answers to the citizens, and many of the ways to "fix things faster" on these climate issues are ones which I think would upset many of the citizens (or more importantly, the property owners/voters) due to removing personal choice. 16/

Not to mention, especially after this pandemic, households have been too hard hit financially to be able to even entertain the costs involved here. 17/

Anyway, I don't have any answers here, just more questions... but hopefully my thinking out loud maybe helpful to someone. 18/18.