It shouldn’t be difficult

We can have our cake and eat it, too. We can have a clean energy future and better resilience to extreme events.

When we moved here, we tried to find a healthy home that was energy efficient, which was extremely difficult. We could not find anything with electric heat. We ultimately bought a house that has two wood burning fireplaces and a gas furnace. We did some research into this, discovering that any kind of burning — logs, pellets and gas — all worsen climate change AND produce fine particulate matter which is bad for brains and lungs. If you seal up your home to weatherize and prevent wildfire smoke from getting in, you might seal yourself up with indoor air pollution, too.

We learned: 1) our energy utility company does not provide for basic energy audits or a list of energy auditors; 2) it’s really hard to find energy auditors in Spokane; and 3) we have no access to community solar or incentives for transitioning from gas furnaces to electric heat pumps.

It does not have to be so difficult to transition to clean energy. Here’s an idea: When energy utility companies purchase offsets to meet carbon reduction goals, they could use these dollars to transition to a non-burning energy future. For example, they could provide grants to incentivize home weatherization, provide low-income residents with electric heat pumps, or build more community solar.

Claire Richards, Ph.D., R.N.

Spokane