Sally understands the need to protect our climate. She supports:
- Reducing carbon emissions by cutting down on commute times
- Reducing carbon emissions by increasing the use of public transit
- Creating walkable, bikeable communities
- Funding the Climate Action Fund
- Encouraging Low Impact Development
One of my most favorite memories of growing up in a big family was the annual Green Family Woodcutting Bee. Grandma and Grandpa lived on a 120ish acre farm where they raised 8 kids, my dad being the youngest, so I grew up surrounded by at least 50 aunts and uncles and cousins. Every fall we would go out to the farm where all of the adult men drove tractors back into “Maple Grove” and spent the day with their chainsaws felling trees, the women cooking food for everyone in the kitchen, and the kids running around in-between it all. After the trees were felled, everyone pitched in to run the log-splitter and stack the wood. At the end of the day, my grandparents had enough wood to burn for the winter.
Spending so much of my childhood at the farm taught me how we are connected to the environment, and how much we depend on the earth for what we need. I would watch fascinated as my uncles dressed and gutted the deer they hunted, watched them clean the fish they caught, and helped my grandma can the vegetables she grew. Watching my dad and his siblings sell the farm after my grandparents died was so crushing to me. I loved those fields and hills and flowers.
If we want to protect the environment, we have to reduce our carbon emissions. We have to protect our watershed. We need to protect our green spaces.
We can do all of these things while still providing housing, and actually, building housing helps with these goals. Creating housing is good for the environment.
In Albemarle County, transportation causes 52% of our greenhouse gas emissions. When people have to commute long distances to work here, they are hurting the environment! Creating housing that employees can afford, near their place of work, will cut down on our emissions.
We do not have to avoid development in Albemarle County in order to protect the environment.
When we build multi-family homes, we reduce emissions and create the capacity needed for public transit to work effectively. We can create walkable, bikeable communities so that even the people who live here don’t have to drive here. We can create housing that is not sprawl. Through our zoning code, we can require that developments have a certain amount of green space, and even community spaces for people. We can create our own space for community gardens and parks. We have the power to design what we want Albemarle County to look like in a way that both creates housing and protects the environment.
There are other things we can do. Albemarle County can support the requests of C3 and fund the Climate Action Fund. We can encourage, or even require Low Impact Development. We have the tools to protect the environment while we also provide housing. The biggest impact we can make in creating a cleaner climate is getting people out of their cars. To do that, they need to live where they work. We do not have to avoid development in Albemarle County in order to protect the environment – we can do both.