California Center for Sustainable Communities

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Climate Change, Extreme Heat, & the Future of LA’s Electric Power System

For LA residents climate change is no longer a distant or abstract concept because its effects are already being felt throughout the region. During just the past three years, for example, several new record high maximum daily temperatures have been recorded in numerous LA neighborhoods, with Van Nuys experiencing 118 °F in 2018 and more recently, in 2020, parts of Woodland Hills enduring temperatures of 120 °F. These developments are clearly illustrated in the figure below which shows the percentage of sampled maximum daily temperatures within the LA-Basin that were above different high heat thresholds for each year from 2005 to 2020.

high-heat-graph

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A Just Transition: Envisioning the Next 40 Years

This webinar by Physicians for Social Responsibility raises some of the fundamental issues that face the energy transition and highlights dangerous course we are on today.  Highly recommended for an in-depth analysis of what needs to change -- Stephanie Pincetl, director of CCSC

PSRLA

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THE ABC’S OF ELECTRIFYING YOUR GAS APPLIANCES: A Guidebook for Households

While there are many benefits to electrifying your gas appliances, there are also costs. The costs and benefits are different for each type of appliance. We wrote this Guidebook as a starting point, to help you begin thinking about these decisions. Many people can’t afford to replace all their gas appliances, so this Guidebook can help you prioritize your choices, to make the best decision for you and your family. Your decision to electrify will depend on what is most important to you, such as improving your indoor air quality, keeping your utility costs low, or helping to slow climate change and improving outdoor air quality.

healthy-home-tips-winter-draft

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Dr. Pincetl spoke with the Environmental Science without Borders UCLA Chapter

Getting Beyond Tropes: Cities for the 21st Century Dr. Pincetl spoke to the Environmental Science without Borders (ESWB), a subsidiary of UCLA's Center for Diverse Leadership in Science (CDLS), which connects students and early-career scientists from around the globe, regarding her research on urban metabolism water and energy policy, habitat conservation efforts, and the impact of land use in conjunction with climate change and climate policies. 

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The Case for Gas Bans and Residential Building Electrification: Equity Perspectives on an Emerging Socio-Technical Energy Transition

“Natural gas bans” refer to a diversity of municipal building code changes that disallow certain uses of natural gas in new residential buildings. Gas bans vary in terms of their provisions, but all are intended, along with complementary building electrification programs, to limit the amount of fossil fuels that must be extracted, transported, and burned to meet residential energy needs, thus reducing carbon emissions from buildings, which currently account for approximately 30 percent of the US’s total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

ucla institute of environment and sustainability in forbes: california’s natural gas bans are drawing fire from black and latino leaders

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A Strategic Framework for a Just Transition

Just Transition is a framework for a fair shift to an economy that is ecologically sustainable, equitable and just for all its members. After centuries of global plunder, the profit-driven, growth-dependent, industrial economy is severely undermining the life support systems of the planet. An economy based on extracting from a finite system faster than the capacity of the system to regenerate will eventually come to an end—either through collapse or through our intentional re-organization.

A Strategic Framework for a Just Transition