Electrify Everything: What We Can Do About the Climate Crisis – Updates from the Greening Committee

Save the Date—Feb. 11—for presentation of “Electrify Everything” at Kehilla.  For urban dwellers the main sources of greenhouse gases are the gas we use to heat our homes and water, our transportation and the electricity we use for power in our homes.  This presentation by volunteers from 350 Bay Area will address these areas and what we can do personally (beyond LEDs and recycling) to make a real difference.  We’ll look at our non-fossil fuel choices for our homes and businesses to help us get to where we want to be—100% clean, renewable power throughout our buildings and between our destinations.  Tuesday evening, 2/11, 7-9 p.m.  Invite your neighbors and friends from sister congregations.

Reminders About Your East Bay Community Energy (EBCE) Options:  A year ago community choice energy came to most of us who live in EBCE cities, including Berkeley,Oakland, Emeryville, San Leandro, Hayward and Piedmont.  This alternative to PG&E offered 3 options, which we wrote about in this newsletter.  The Greening Committee recommended either accepting the default called Bright Choice, with slightly lower rates than PG&E, or, if you could afford a little more, opting up to Renewable 100, for 100% renewable energy.  Regardless of what you chose back then, including a choice to opt out and stay with PG&E, you can change that choice any time you want to do so; go to ebce.org to get more info on each option and make your choice.

For PG&E customers who get discounted rates through CARE, FERA and Medical Baseline Allowance programs:  You can get the same discounts applied to your energy bill by EBCE.  Yes, you can get cleaner energy by opting in or up with EBCE and still get discounted rates.  If you opted out last year because you were afraid of losing your discounts, you can still choose the cleaner energy option. New enrollment and renewals are still handled by PG&E; for more info, go to pge.com/financialassistance or check the info at ebce.org.