Switch Off Fossil Fuels
Fossil fuels, such as coal, oil, and natural gas, are a primary cause of climate change. These emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, creating a heat trapping blanket. Manufacturing the goods we purchase, driving gasoline powered vehicles, and heating our home are all examples of how we interact with fossil fuels on a daily basis. Ashland’s goal is to have clean energy by 2050. We can achieve this goal by making adjustments and innovations to our daily lifestyle.
By switching to low or no carbon energy sources we can lower our carbon footprint.
Visit the City of Ashland’s “Adapt Your Home” resources
City Incentives Available!
The City of Ashland Conservation Division offers multiple programs to help citizens save energy and reduce carbon emissions. These programs currently include free home energy reviews, new construction incentives, solar electric incentives, heat-pump water heaters, heating system and window upgrades, project-specific incentives for commercial customers, no-barrier public charging, and zero emission vehicle incentives.
Individual and Household Actions Matter
Drawdown Solutions analysis reveals that individual and household actions have the potential to produce roughly 25–30 percent of the total emissions reductions needed to avoid dangerous climate change (>1.5°C rise). That is a lot higher than most people realize. It’s because we as individuals and households are a part of a broader economic system currently reliant on fossil fuels, from the food we buy, to the electricity we use, to the buildings we live in. While the vast majority of global emissions (70–75 percent) can be reduced directly by the decisions of those who run businesses, utilities, buildings, and governments, our choices as consumers, energy users, tenants, and voters have direct impact in their own right and can affect those decisions by sending signals across the system. So rather than being laden with blame and guilt, let’s own our power to make change.
From the more than 90 specific, definitive, science-backed solutions Project Drawdown has identified, we have distilled a list of 20 high-impact climate actions that individuals and households in high-income countries can take and that together could reduce up to 25 percent of future greenhouse gases:
