Last month, the Irvine City Council voted unanimously to mandate that all new construction be 100% electric – no natural gas allowed. Fueled by “climate action” fervor, the progressive council banned natural gas down to granular level of forbidding cheaper, faster natural gas for heating new backyard jacuzzies.
Irvine councilmembers took this draconian stance in the name of reducing the city’s greenhouse gas emissions. It all over the ordinance’s preamble: “methane [natural gas’ contribution to GHGs] is more than 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere” and “33% of the City’s greenhouse gas emissions are derived from buildings.”
So if the city is willing to enact a far-reaching law that significantly to the building costs while restricting choice, they must have a fairly good idea of the trade-off in reduced greenhouse gas emissions – right?
Wrong.
We asked the city what the expected annual GHG reduction would be.
“Unfortunately, we are not able to provide this estimate due to a number of hypothetical variables involved,” Public Information Officer Kristina Perrigoue. “While we have an idea of how many units of new construction we will have, that number is a variable, and we also don’t know what the usage of those buildings would be apart from a general estimate.”
In other words, banning natural gas in new construction is an expensive exercise in climate action virtue signaling. The council adopted without the slightest idea of its impact on the climate. It says something about the mindset of the Irvine City Council – cheered on by their climate action supporters – that they passed a GHG reduction measure without having any measurement of what those reductions will be.
We do know it will make new housing less affordable by adding several thousand dollars to the cost of each new housing unit built.
We also know Irvine’s natural gas ban will have zero impact on global temperatures or weather. It’s nonsense to pretend otherwise. China belches out trillions of tons of methane every year, and is approving two new coal plants every week. Irvine’s big “climate action” action is literally a drop in the ocean – if that much.
And we also know that the Irvine City Council, at least in this instance, is unconcerned with science or measurable facts but entirely concerned with climate posturing at the expense of affordable housing and personal freedoms.
