Renters can help with climate change
7-minute read
This Week
Renters can help with climate change
Major home remodels in San Francisco must go all-electric
Fuel breaks protect homes from wildfires
Good fires in forests prevent a lot of smoke
Plans to prevent wildfires with less money
Local CAL FIRE crews train hard for wildfires
Brief climate news
Climate jargon explained
Contacts for Santa Cruz County
About me
Unrelated advice
Click on the underlined links to learn more.
Renters can help with climate change
Plug-in window heat pump in a rented apartment, from the article
Analysis: In Santa Cruz County, rentals are nearly half of our housing. Many renters live in houses or apartments with natural gas heating, cooking, hot water, or clothes dryers. And many gas appliances slowly leak, adding methane to the air that’s 80 times worse than carbon dioxide for climate change.
But renters can reduce climate pollution using portable electric appliances like:
Induction hot plates or induction stoves
Electric hot water kettles, toaster ovens, slow cookers, microwave ovens, and air fryers
Window-mounted heat pumps that both cool and heat homes
Electric clothes dryers
All of these have models that can plug into normal 120-volt outlets. One family uses a $170 two-burner induction hot plate for most cooking, and a $130 toaster oven for baking and roasting.
Jason Wexler and his son cook together on a two-burner induction hot plate that sits on top of their gas stove, from the article
Talk to the landlord before you replace something that’s hard to swap. You might even convince them to replace water heaters, central heating, or shared gas dryers. Talk about the health and climate benefits, and lower fire and explosion risks. Help them find tax incentives or rebates. Plus efficient electric appliances using heat pumps can lower total utility bills, and increase property values.
Renters can reduce climate pollution in other ways. Buy or lease an electric car. Charging overnight from a normal outlet can add 50 miles, more than most people drive in a day. If that’s a shared outlet, talk to the landlord. Offer to pay for the electricity using a simple meter like the Kill-A-Watt EZ, available from many places. That’s much cheaper than using public chargers.
If you live in town, walk, take buses, and ride electric bikes more often.
You can line dry clothes for free, even in small areas. And your clothes will last longer.
Karina van Schaardenburg hangs laundry to dry in San Francisco, from the article
Quotes: “Everything that we have changed is completely reversible,” said Jason Wexler. “When we move out, the apartment will be just as it was when we moved in.”
Limitations: Heat pump appliances are expensive, so start with smaller stuff. And don’t be surprised if the landlord doesn’t want to spend money on these improvements. It doesn’t hurt to ask. Especially if you can get a group of neighbors to ask with you.
Actions: If you are a renter, or even a homeowner, do what you can to reduce climate pollution. And tell your friends and neighbors. Group buys of heat pump appliances can lower the cost a lot.
Sources:
Laura Klivans, KQED, 8-minute read
Laura Klivans, KQED, 6-minute read
Major home remodels in San Francisco must go all-electric
Electric induction stove, Frigidaire
To get a permit for a major home remodel in San Francisco after July 1, you must switch to electric heaters, water heaters, and appliances like stoves and dryers. These new rules will apply to about 300 homes or apartments every year, a tiny fraction of the city’s housing. Homeowners could save money on the project by dropping natural gas plumbing. And they should have lower PG&E bills.
Switching to all-electric doesn’t mean expensive electric service upgrades. Good design using efficient appliances works well on older homes with smaller breaker panels. But too many contractors don’t know about that.
Getting rid of natural gas reduces fire and explosion risk, indoor air pollution, and climate pollution. Let your city council members and county supervisors know we need this. Check Contacts for Santa Cruz County below.
Brooke Park, S.F. Chronicle, 6-minute read
Fuel breaks protect homes from wildfires
Smaller trees were chipped and buried to make fuel breaks around this house, from the video
Working with landowners, several agencies and contractors used heavy equipment to remove small trees and brush around homes in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Because of this fuel break, firefighters stopped a recent wildfire quickly. With no homes damaged.
CAL FIRE also pays for chipping when people cut their own trees and branches. And they pay for removing hazardous trees too close to homes.
“These landowners know that the more proactive they are, the more resilient they are going to be to any type of fire,” said Mark Egbert with the Georgetown Divide Resource Conservation District.
Global overheating means more wildfires, especially in our county where forests cover about half the land. If you live in the woods, our Resource Conservation District can help you with permits, chipping, and creating defensible space.
CAL FIRE TV, 3-minute video
Good fires in forests prevent a lot of smoke
Firefighters watch a good fire in Northern California, from the article
New research shows that setting good fires can reduce future wildfire smoke up to 25%. Plus good fires reduced the risk of large wildfires by a huge amount.
“We know that smoke is killing a lot of people,” said Marshall Burke, a professor at Stanford University. “Any reduction in that is meaningful.” And we have big wildfire problems after a century of putting out fires as fast as possible, plus global overheating.
“We are probably going to have to tolerate some smoke,” said Burke. Forest thinning with large machines and hand crews could help. But that’s a lot more expensive.
You should support good fires planned by CAL FIRE or Native American tribes. A little smoke now is better than a lot of thick smoke later. Or a massive wildfire, that also makes a lot of climate pollution. You probably didn’t notice a prescribed burn on June 4 in the forest on upper Soquel Creek. I didn’t, even though I knew it was happening.
Danielle Venton, KQED, 5-minute read
Plans to prevent wildfires with less money
Trucks and crews fight a wildfire in L.A., from the article
For the last 5 years, state and federal agencies rapidly expanded good fires, forest thinning, and fire hardening to prevent wildfires and damage. But a lot of the state money is going away, and federal fire prevention work is dropping. Yet a state and federal group plans to expand wildfire prevention.
The new plan “is going to enable us to go bigger, smarter, and faster,” said Patrick Wright, director of the California Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force. “We’ve built that capacity, we’ve built that science, we’ve built that network. Now we’re ready to take everything to the next level.”
The draft five-year plan will increase forest thinning and good fires, reduce problems that start wildfires, and help with home fire hardening. Focused on areas with higher wildfire risks.
Native American tribes helped develop the plan. And it includes differences for areas like the Sierra Nevada, Southern California, and the Central Coast, including Santa Cruz County.
Wherever you live, wildfires and smoke could hurt your family, home, and neighborhood. You can read the 55 page draft plan, and comment online until August 7, 2026.
And if the task force had more money, they could prevent more wildfires that also make a lot of climate pollution. Tell your Federal and State politicians to work on that. Check Contacts for Santa Cruz County below.
Noah Haggerty, L.A. Times, 4-minute read
Local CAL FIRE crews train hard for wildfires
CAL FIRE crew setting a good fire in Soquel Demonstration State Forest, from the article
Two years ago, CAL FIRE set up a center near La Honda for training wildland firefighters to work in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties.
“The CZU fire really highlighted the need for hand crews in this area,” said Battalion Chief Travis Pridemore. Hand crews specialize in fighting wildfires where fire engines can’t go, like much of the Santa Cruz Mountains. They also work on good fires and cut long fire breaks through the forest.
The crews constantly train on many skills. One test requires hiking 4 miles with 60 pounds of equipment, then cutting fire breaks, under strict time limits. Many of the hand crew members are locals, but these crews will fight wildfires anywhere in California.
Let’s hope we don’t need them to fight large local fires. Whether you live in the woods, in town, or on the coast, prepare your family, home, and neighborhood for wildfires now. Check the CAL FIRE Hardening Your Home website for details.
Kevin Painchaud, Lookout Santa Cruz, 7-minute read
Brief climate news
The Watch Duty app adds local flood alerts to wildfire alerts. And they plan to include other natural disasters. WIRED, 4-minute read
A developer plans a solar farm in Felton on 9 acres next to the Safeway shopping center. No big utility batteries proposed. San Lorenzo Valley Post, 4-minute read
Drivers replacing their electric car ask how fast it will charge, not how far it will go on a full charge. They want to add a couple hundred miles in 10 to 15 minutes, while getting coffee and a snack. Recurrent, 4-minute read
Climate jargon explained
Carbon dioxide (CO2): Main climate pollution gas causing global overheating and climate change
Climate change: Long-term changes to Earth’s weather caused by climate pollution, including global overheating and too much ocean acid
Climate pollution: Gases in the air that trap the Sun’s heat and cause climate change, mainly carbon dioxide and methane, also called greenhouse gases or carbon pollution
Defensible space: Area around a building designed to reduce fire danger and provide a safe zone for firefighters to work
Electric car: Car that runs on electric motors and a large rechargeable battery
Fire hardening: Preparing buildings and areas around them to resist wildfires
Global overheating: Rapid increase in worldwide temperatures starting around 1970, also called global warming
Good fire: Carefully setting a fire to prevent fires, reduce fire damage, and improve forest health, also called controlled burn, prescribed burn, prescribed fire, or cultural fire
Heat pump: Two-way air conditioner that can cool or heat a building, heat a hot water tank, or boil water for factories
Induction range: Very efficient electric stove that uses magnetism to heat pans
Methane: Climate pollution gas 80 times worse than carbon dioxide, second-worst cause of climate change, but it doesn’t last as long
Natural gas: Fuel pumped from underground, almost all methane, that adds climate pollution when it leaks, and when it’s burned for power or heat
Solar farm: Large land area covered with solar panels
More at climatejargon.com
Contacts for Santa Cruz County
City council: Watsonville, Scotts Valley, Santa Cruz, or Capitola, depending on where you live
County supervisors
County Resource Conservation District
Regional Transportation Commission (SCCRTC)
Central Coast Community Energy (3CE) and PG&E
State Assembly: Gail Pellerin, Dawn Addis, or Robert Rivas, depending on where you live
State Senate: John Laird
California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), Air Resources Board (CARB), and Energy Commission (CEC)
Governor Gavin Newsom
U.S. Congress: Jimmy Panetta or Zoe Lofgren, depending on where you live
U.S. Senate: Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff
About me
I’m Rex Sanders, a science writer who’s lived in Santa Cruz County more than 20 years. Each week I check dozens of reliable sources for climate news that affects our county. Focused on how we can create a better future together.
Unrelated advice
Everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.
Kurt Vonnegut