Eric Arens, Team Leader. Check Calendar for meetings.
The League of Women Voters of Berkeley, Albany and Emeryville was the first League in California to form a Climate Team to address this global crisis. Our goals are to analyze and support legislation that aims to reduce global warming and to educate our members and other state teams on this urgent issue. Addressing this subject has been a pioneering departure from previous actions taken by our Leagues. The LWV of California (LWVC) and the LWV of the US, as well as many local Leagues, have now joined in the worldwide effort to fight Climate Change. Since 2007, our Climate Team has educated itself intensively on causes of global warming with possible mitigations while pursuing strategies to engage citizens, government regulators, legislators, and elected leaders to take steps in meeting this challenge. Important issues we currently support are:
Universal Electrification with Clean Energy:
Global warming is largely caused by the burning of fossil fuels so it is urgent to transform our electric grid to run on renewable energy and to completely electrify buildings and transportation. Individuals are key to this movement, so to explain what electrification looks like, our League has produced its own brochure to explain building and automobile electrification: (brochure link)
LWVBAE supported the City of Berkeley’s visionary move to all-electric new construction and will continue to support the move to all-electric existing buildings and electrified transportation. We have joined with the Building Decarbonization Coalition to inform our activity: https://www.switchison.org/.
Eric Arens, ericarens@comcast.net, is the leader of our electrification and clean energy initiative.
Urban Wildfire Management:
While electrification is a climate crisis mitigation tool, wildfire is the climate crisis’ dramatic symptom. California has 2,054,900 housing units in high hazard fire areas. Alameda County has more housing units in high fire areas than any other county in Northern California. Urban wildfire management is an urgent need in Alameda County and our Climate Team intersects with the California State League well as such organizations as Firewise or nfpa.org.
(Candace Hyde-Wang, candacehw@gmail.com, is the leader of the wildfire initiative.)
Housing and Population Growth:
How are we to look at the need for housing and population growth in areas highly impacted by climate changes including wildfire, sea-level rise, and drought? This is one of California’s most urgent issues.
(Micheal Barnes, michael7barnes@gmail.com is the leader of our housing initiative.)
The Climate Team partners with nonprofit climate organizations such as the Sierra Club, Citizens Climate Lobby, 350.org, and 350BayArea, the National Research Defense Council, EarthJustice, and the Berkeley Climate Action Coalition to organize forums to raise public awareness and understanding of climate change issues. Meetings are organized, and local climate activists have been fortunate to hear some of the most well-known climate researchers, including those at nearby UC Berkeley and Stanford University.
Climate Team members attend meetings of environmental regulatory and/or government agencies such as the local arm of the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD), the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), the California Energy Commission (CEC), and the Berkeley Energy Commission. In addition to keeping abreast of the activities of these bodies, attendees are encouraged to make public comments regarding ongoing matters.
Climate Team members participate in lobbying the state legislature in Sacramento for bills supported by the LWV of California. Meetings with legislators on Lobby Day that are organized by LWVC to inform them of LWV concerns is an important aspect of the lobbying effort. Another lobbying effort of LWVBAE has involved making presentations on Climate Change at state and national conventions of LWV to convention goers.
LWVBAE participates in electrification fairs and other public events put on by the City of Berkeley and other organizations to explain actions that people can take such as the electrification of houses and cars. The LWVBAE has written and assembled brochures on these actions.
Fight Climate Change at Home – a brochure.
PLEASE JOIN US!
Climate Change Team History
Under the 2007 leadership of Diz Swift and Janice Blumenkrantz, the LWVBAE Climate Team of the LWVBAE was formed in 2007. Diz Swift (left) and Jan Blumenkrantz (right), are shown here with then Senator Barbara Boxer, on a visit on climate change.
