Berekeley, California, where tobacco smoke and soon carbon dioxide have been expunged from reality
Berkeley has become
the first city in the nation to ban the installation of natural gas lines in new homes.
The City Council on Tuesday night unanimously voted to ban gas from new low-rise residential buildings starting Jan. 1.
It's not the first time Berkeley has passed pioneering health or environmental legislation.
In 1977, Berkeley was the first in the country to ban smoking in restaurants and bars. In January the city banned single-use disposables, requiring restaurants to use to-go foodware that is compostable.
The natural gas ordinance, introduced by Councilwoman Kate Harrison, requires all new single-family homes, town homes and small apartment buildings to have electric infrastructure. After its passage, Harrison thanked the community and her colleagues "for making Berkeley the first city in California and the United States to prohibit natural gas infrastructure in new buildings."
"It's an enormous issue," Harrison told
The Chronicle. "We need to really tackle this. When we think about pollution and climate-change issues, we tend to think about factories and cars, but all buildings are producing greenhouse gas."
The city will include commercial buildings and larger residential structures as the state moves to develop regulations for those, officials said.
Comment: See also: Top Puerto Rico officials resign after exposure of controversial group chat; Governor Rossello resisting calls for his resignation
UPDATE 25 July 2019
Governor Rosello has resigned, saying: "The demands have been overwhelming and I've received them with the highest degree of humility."
We're not suggesting that he didn't deserve to go, but that his predicament is essentially the same as all leaders: there isn't squat they can do to protect people from increasing natural disasters and the likely global environmental catastrophe that's coming...