Opinion: Climate change should be a priority for Menlo Park
On Saturday, March 22, Menlo Park held its annual priority setting meeting. In an online survey preceding the meeting, respondents were asked if climate action (and other priorities from last year) should continue to be prioritized. A few responded negatively. Some stated climate change is a hoax and addressing it is a waste of time, effort, and money. One commenter even alleged it’s a money laundering scheme. Others said it’s a global issue and way too big for little Menlo Park to do anything about it.
If I could talk with those folks, I’d say to them, “I get it.” The climate crisis is a massive issue — too big for Menlo Park to tackle on its own. But we are all in this together. While the world and Menlo Park are making encouraging progress, we still have a long way to go and a short amount of time to get there. So, I think climate action should be a priority for Menlo Park (and all other cities), especially in light of the current federal administration’s shocking rollbacks of countless environmental protections.
We can make a difference locally. And in the process, we will have better local air quality which improves and saves lives. We, as individuals, did not cause climate change — that burden falls primarily on the burning of fossil fuels. And the fossil fuel industry, having known the ill effects of their product for decades, has exacerbated the issue with their tactics of denial, doubt, and delay — not to mention their additional role in and promotion of the increased production of plastics. The way our food is produced and wasted is a significant contributor as well. There are, of course, other factors too.
When it comes to global warming, every fraction of a degree of warming prevented is a reduction of suffering. It could be the difference between a small island nation surviving versus being submerged and its people displaced. It could be one less extreme heatwave that takes a grandmother before her time. It could be the survival of a key species that preserves an critical ecosystem. So, let’s continue to fight for that fraction of a degree.
The City should not only prioritize climate action but, more importantly, put in place the policies, programs, and funding necessary to make progress. Here in Menlo Park, the City can enact impactful and fair building codes this year that make our buildings safer, healthier, more efficient, and cleaner. The City should increase outreach and partner with community-based organizations to help educate our residents and businesses on ways we can make a difference with the appliances we use in our homes and offices, the way we get from one place to another, the food we eat and waste, and the clothes we wear.
Now is the time to do something more substantial, and to bring the community together at the same time. The City should enable the formation of a new community task force composed of a variety of stakeholders such as City leaders, business owners, homeowners, renters, landlords, developers, contractors, and environmental groups to come together and collaborate in order to develop a workplan to achieve the goals of Menlo Park’s Climate Action Plan. Additionally, the City should continue to pursue opportunities to build dense affordable all-electric housing in amenity-rich locations near public transit (like, I don’t know, downtown). And the City must continue to help residents in the Belle Haven neighborhood transition to cleaner equipment, increase the urban tree canopy, and adapt to sea level rise and the many other detrimental effects of a warming planet.
Ultimately and thankfully, the City did elect to again prioritize climate action — moreover we all must organize, mobilize, and realize that Menlo Park can make a difference. It is our obligation to our neighbors, our children, future generations, and small island nations to do all that we can. The changes we demonstrate as a City and individuals can embolden and inspire others to do the same — that is the multiplier effect making our efforts even more impactful. We must never give up this fight for a healthier planet that will sustain us for generations to come — there is too much beauty in this world to lose to do otherwise.
John McKenna is chair of the City’s Environmental Quality Commission.
Painting by climate change artist Michael Killen
Ole Agesen April 09, 2025 at 10:23 pm
John, thank you for this thoughtful letter.
I agree that we have an opportunity for our City to lead, and for the Citizens to co-lead. It is important that our (local) government shows the way, but it is just as important that people who live in Menlo Park don’t wait to follow, but actually lead from the front.
We can all take this moment to determine if our existing water heater is nearing the end of its life and if it is, we can upgrade it before it fails, upgrading to a new heatpump water heater. Ditto for furnace or old A/C: upgrade to the comfort and efficiency of a modern inverter-driven variable speed heat pump.
Moreover, we can ask: in same manner as we look at 100W incandescent bulb, do *you bulb* deserve to burn out or is it better to replace you now with 10x more efficient LED bulb? The latter, of course.
If this reasoning applies to $2 light bulb, let me suggest that it also applies to a water heater, a furnace and a gas clothes dryer. We can upgrade before burn-out, making it a planned upgrade, with no downtime. We should not wait for the old equipment to burn out before replacing.
In fact, we cannot afford to run down presently installed gas appliances as doing so would exceed the emissions that the Paris agreement has given us room for. We must be proactive and replace/upgrade from gas to electric before burnout. This approach, surprisingly, is better than trying to get full mileage from existing gas equipment.
To summarize, this is a good time to proactively upgrade to electric appliances: many rebates and tax credits help with affordability and doing so allows us, all of us, in Menlo Park to lead from the front.
Menlo Park can lead!
Ole
Judy Horst April 16, 2025 at 5:26 pm
I appreciate your comments, John, and I hope other communities and the County will take note of them because Menlo Park is not an island. It will require more than one city making climate change a priority if we are ever able to stop the evils of climate change or start to reverse what we’ve been experiencing so far. We are all part of something bigger than one city.
I was glad you mentioned increasing the tree canopy as one of several beneficial things the City can do. It is an achievable opportunity and should be a goal for the City.
Over the past 10 years, in neighboring Menlo Oaks, we have lost at least 10% of our tree canopy, mostly because many heritage/significant oaks and other large trees have been removed by permit. They were in the way of a home owner’s new barbecue patio or a developer demolished a home and wanted to flip the property as fast as he could.
The County, after a review process, rubber stamps almost all tree removal permits primarily due to its own liability concerns. Additionally, while the County requires two small replacement trees when a large tree is removed, since Covid, there has been no attempt to monitor whether replacement trees were ever planted or if they survived after planting.
Trees are naturally lost through aging or incredibly destructive storms caused by climate change, but in Menlo Oaks, and probably in most Peninsula cities, they are mostly lost by approved tree removal permits. If these trends continue, Menlo Oaks could eventually become Menlo Plains.
Now is the time for cities, and the County, to deal with climate change by preserving trees and planting new ones. Increasing tree canopies is in our best interest and something good each of us, and our local governments, can do for Mother Earth.