We’re building a movement to ban natural gas in all new buildings and equitably electrify all existing buildings.
Dear Mayor Breed & Supervisors:
Stop gaslighting us.
We only have so many years left to dramatically reduce our carbon emissions, including eliminating natural gas in buildings.
Join the Movement
Join more than twenty San Francisco and Bay Area-based environmental, public health, architectural and engineering organizations calling on Mayor London Breed and the Board of Supervisors to immediately pass
by January 1, 2020citywide ordinances requiring (1) all newly proposed San Francisco buildings to be powered entirely by electricity, and (2) all new buildings already in the permitting process to be electric-ready.
1. We are in a climate emergency
"Limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society”
of San Francisco's carbon emissions arise from natural gas combustion and leaks in residential and commercial buildings.
Not only is gas extraction very destructive and toxic,
it's leaky business -- methane gas is
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into the atmosphere from across fracking wells, pipelines and even from inside our homes and businesses.
We need to equitably electrify every building
at an emergency pace in order to eliminate these emissions.
At a minimum, between 78 to 89 percent of our electricity comes from carbon-free sources, and is getting cleaner every year.
2. Gas is a threat to health, safety and equality
Gas combustion pollutants include:
- nitrogen dioxide
- carbon monoxide
- nitric oxide
- formaldehyde
- acetaldehyde
- ultrafine particles
Californians spend approximiately 68% of their time inside their residences and nearly 100% indoors.
Gas infrastructure is lethal during earthquakes and leaks.
Gas lines often catastrophically rupture during seismic events.
- 1906 Earthquake: Much of San Francisco burned down, in part due to gas infrastructure.
- 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake: major fires broke out in the Marina District.
- The United States Geological Survey estimates an 8.0 earthquake on the Hayward Fault will cause 800 larges fires.
Gas leaks cause catastrophic explosions and fires.
- 2010 San Bruno Disaster
- 2014 East Harlem Disaster
- 2015 Aliso Canyon Disaster
- 2015 Bakersfield Disaster
- 2015 East Village, New York Diaster
- 2018 Lawrence, Andover and North Andover Massachuchets Disaster
- 2018 Richmond District Disaster
- 2019 Durham, North Carolina Disaster
- 2019 Plantation Florida Disaster
Gas infrastructure exacerbates inequality.
The vast majority of new construction in San Francisco is occuring in the rapidly gentrifying southeast corridor which has been subject to considerable environmental and other injustices.
The City estimates 75% of San Francisco's growth will occur in the southeast sector in the next 30 years.
(UC Berkeley image by Anthony Nardone)
Asthma levels in the Bay Area already strongly correspond to the areas that have have been redlined due to racist housing policies.
Critically, renters do not have a choice in determining which appliances they use.
3. New all-electric buildings are cheaper to build and more comfortable than gas buildings
Coming soon
Join the Movement
Join more than twenty San Francisco and Bay Area-based environmental, public health, architectural and engineering organizations calling on Mayor London Breed and the Board of Supervisors to immediately pass
by January 1, 2020citywide ordinances requiring (1) all newly proposed San Francisco buildings to be powered entirely by electricity, and (2) all new buildings already in the permitting process to be electric-ready.