The world needs more Ithacas

Photo by Karsten Würth on Unsplash

One American city plans to decarbonize every building. The Washington Post reports that Ithaca in New York state will be the first city in the United States to electrify its buildings.

The revolution occurred on November 3. That was the day the council voted to decarbonize all the buildings in the 30,000-strong city.

That would be roughly 6,000 homes and buildings and as the Post says, “decarbonization would involve looking at everything from how a building is heated to what appliances it uses, with the aim of moving away from the consumption of fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas.”

That’s both a massive undertaking and a meaningful one. The report says that buildings account for nearly 40 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States and the Ithaca initiative will cut the “ equivalent of the emissions from about 35,000 cars driven for a year”.

It is an act of courage and commitment to carbon-neutrality.

The world needs more Ithacas.