Our July Letter to the Editor: A Greenhouse Gas Reduction Plan can work for Citizens of Calaveras

The draft Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Reduction Plan being prepared by the County could help us secure outside funding for things we already need. 

For example, many of our local-economy-boosting tourists have already switched to electric vehicles (have you noticed the Teslas?). Those vehicles need charging stations. So to keep our tourism-based economy competitive and create local jobs, we could adopt, fund, and implement a GHG Reduction plan to start building those charging stations here.

Also, these plans can help us fund wildfire safety. Wildfires create a lot of GHGs, whereas healthy forests and grasslands actually reduce the GHGs in the air. So if we fill out the paperwork to show how much of this land we have, the State of California could drop us some serious cash to simply protect what we already have and increase wildfire safety. 

Finally, energy and water conservation upgrades not only reduce GHG emissions, they can also save local businesses money and improve their bottom line. 

So if you’re a local logger, rancher, firefighter, plumber, electrician, business operator, or tourist-reliant shop owner, you can see this GHG Reduction Plan as an opportunity to return to our county tax money we have already paid so we can invest it in local businesses, ranches, infrastructure and forest health upgrades. We can put our young people to work building a brighter future for themselves.  

To see some state-funded opportunities already available to us citizens, visit www.calaverascap.com and click CAP Climate.

Austen Thibault, Outreach Coordinator

Calaveras Community Action Project

San Andreas