Connecting Communities Through the Cool City Challenge
The Cool City Challenge’s Cool Block members learn about various ways to decrease carbon usage. Photo credit Jeremy Bezanger
Cities generate 70% of the planet's carbon footprint.
70% of those emissions come from city dwellers and their lifestyle choices. Well, how would cities change the habits and behaviors of individuals within their city? That's where the innovative Cool City Challenge and Irvine’s residents come in.
The Cool City Challenge takes a unique approach to tackle carbon neutrality. While the California Air Resources Board offers generalized solutions, the Cool City Challenge utilizes its moonshot approach to push cities, block by block, into a more carbon-neutral lifestyle through active coaching, consulting, and monetary incentives. Any city that proves that they will be carbon neutral by 2030 is rewarded with a one million dollar cash award, an accomplishment made by only three Californian cities. Cool City Challenge realizes that to properly address the challenges of going carbon neutral, citizens should be coached rather than simply lectured by government officials.
To better encourage citizens to look toward carbon-friendly lifestyles, the Cool City Challenge introduces a smaller, more concentrated offset: the Cool Block Challenge. The Cool Block Challenge focuses primarily on education and consultation.
“My children and I have always been interested in the environment and the impact of climate change,” says Amy Parekh, an Irvine-based Cool Block Leader.
Xander, Amy, and Annika Shah lead their block as members of the Cool City Challenge’s Cool Block program. Photo credit Jay Shah
Parekh heard of the program from a friend who works for the Climate Action Campaign and became a Cool Block Leader at the beginning of 2022. Her teenage daughter, Annika Shah, spearheads their Cool Block Leader efforts.
To start a Cool Block, a volunteer must invite five to eight households on his or her block to an informational meeting, and that is exactly what Shah did.
“The program taught us how to interact with our neighbors,” says Shah. “After we got five to eight households on our block we were able to go through action plans on the Cool Block System where they have direct objectives on how to make our house cleaner and safer.”
For five months, each newly developed team goes to training meetings where they tackle the Cool Block Challenge’s eight key topics.
“The topics all have action plans - algorithms- and you can tick off action plans as you complete them,” explains Shah.
Throughout the program, these cool block communities are advised and, depending on their living arrangement, are given several pointers on how to decrease carbon usage in their neighborhoods.
The goal of the program is two-fold: create a stronger sense of community and inspire one another to take climate action. Although reducing one’s carbon footprint usually begins with personal lifestyle changes, Cool Block Challenge’s program encourages the entire block to work together to reduce carbon usage.
In the Parekh/Shah family, the entire family works together towards a common goal. With Parekh taking initiative and making herself a Cool Block leader, Shah spearheading community outreach to garner support and participation, or even Shah’s little brother, Xander, scouring through electric and water bills to figure out where the family can cut carbon usage, it is a group effort. When this type of communal thinking is applied to carbon neutrality, it enables several blocks to work together. Neighborhoods and cities are ushered towards carbon neutrality in an optimistic and unified manner.
Learn more about the Cool Block program here.
