"Manhole" and "Manpower" are now out in favor of "Maintenance hole" and "Human effort." Somewhere George Orwell is crying, but the city's progressive lords were even more destructive when they also moved to ban natural gas from nearly all new buildings.
Beginning Jan. 1, with few exceptions the city will deny developers permission to build a home, town house or small apartment building with natural gas hook-ups for cooking, heating or hot water.
Berkeley claims in its ordinance that "All-electric heating technologies are cost-competitive substitutes to their natural gas counterparts." If that's true in California it is only because the state's climate regulations have increased the cost of fossil fuels.
Electric heaters are generally less expensive than gas furnaces, but in most places gas is less expensive than electricity.
Residential natural gas prices have risen 16% in California over the last five years while falling 8% on average nationwide.
Berkeley doesn't want to wait until state regulators ban new natural gas hook-ups, as environmentalists demand faster progress toward carbon neutrality.
"Asthma and its relationship to natural gas present profound questions about equity," the ordinance says, adding that "The highest asthma rates in Berkeley and Oakland tracked areas that were redlined pursuant to racist housing policies."
https://www.wsj.com/articles/berkeley-bans-natural-gas-11563741190
Beginning Jan. 1, with few exceptions the city will deny developers permission to build a home, town house or small apartment building with natural gas hook-ups for cooking, heating or hot water.
Berkeley claims in its ordinance that "All-electric heating technologies are cost-competitive substitutes to their natural gas counterparts." If that's true in California it is only because the state's climate regulations have increased the cost of fossil fuels.
Electric heaters are generally less expensive than gas furnaces, but in most places gas is less expensive than electricity.
Residential natural gas prices have risen 16% in California over the last five years while falling 8% on average nationwide.
Berkeley doesn't want to wait until state regulators ban new natural gas hook-ups, as environmentalists demand faster progress toward carbon neutrality.
"Asthma and its relationship to natural gas present profound questions about equity," the ordinance says, adding that "The highest asthma rates in Berkeley and Oakland tracked areas that were redlined pursuant to racist housing policies."
https://www.wsj.com/articles/berkeley-bans-natural-gas-11563741190
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