January Newsletter
We hope you’ve had a restful and healing holiday season, and are looking forward to a great 2024! We are currently working toward our campaign launch where we’ll unveil details for our All Electric Home campaign, including new measures for hot water and cooking stoves. Please stay tuned for our official announcement and consider making a donation to support our work to make decarbonizing Whidbey accessible!
Liberation of Color II
In observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, we’d like to encourage you to attend the opening art reception of Liberation of Color II! Join artist and Kicking Gas Arts, Health, and Outreach Manager, Ian Joseph Jackson, this Monday, January 15th from 3:00-6:00 p.m. at the Bayview Cash Store (5603 Bayview Road, Langley).
Weathering Winter Weather
We hope that you’re managing well with the winter storms and weather. Many folks in our community might be tempted to get a whole house generator, and we’re here to tell you—please don’t do it. These systems are very expensive to install, very expensive to operate, and are bad for the environment. In a single power outage, it could use as much fuel as many homes use in an entire year, and cost hundreds of dollars.
Importantly, the investment of tens of thousands of dollars in a whole house generator could instead be an investment in solar plus battery storage. A workable system can be installed for a similar amount of money. Once the system is installed, you’ll never have to make those dreaded gas station runs before winter storms again and you’ll be contributing to positive climate action. I have two neighbors in our community who have solar plus batteries. One of which told me that during multi-day outages in the winter, her modest battery never went below 50%, and was topped off each day with her solar panels.
If you must get a generator, we encourage you to get a small to medium sized portable generator, which you can still wire into your home using a transfer switch. They use far less fuel, and are much less expensive.
A modest 500W or larger portable battery can operate lights and internet for several hours and reduce the need for a gas generator to be running continuously, making the battery even more efficient. I like to run the internet and lights on a portable battery, and then occasionally cool down our refrigerator and chest freezer for a couple of hours while recharging the battery. Rather than 10 hours or more per day of generator time, we’ve cut that down to 3-5 hours.
Luckily, it appears that our utility has been doing work to ensure that we aren’t as plagued by power outages as we have been before.
You can look forward to Kicking Gas working toward both community solutions and offering more in regards to solar in 2024. For our existing clients, we hope your power outage preparedness kits have been enjoyable. If you’re a Kicking Gas client who hasn’t gotten your kit yet, we still have many more gifts to distribute, so look forward to hearing from us about that or reach out to derek@kickgasnow.org to pester me.
Read our Whidbey Island Power Outage Preparedness Guide: https://www.kickgasnow.org/power-outage-prep
What We’re Watching
Coalition of the Willing: A short film shared with us by Jake Stewart, a Kicking Gas client, climate activist, farmer, and local business owner of Sweetwater Farm & Shire. Watch now: https://vimeo.com/12772935
Coalition of the Willing is a collaborative animated film and web-based event about an online war against global warming in a 'post Copenhagen' world.
The film offers a response to the major problem of our time: how to galvanize and enlist the global public in the fight against global warming. Perhaps this video can inspire you to think about what actions you can take, what networks you want to join or build, and how we can, together, reframe the world depicted in this film to South Whidbey Island. We have a lot of work to do locally. Let’s swarm here.
We encourage you to take 15 minutes to watch this short film and share with friends and family! Send us an email if you want to get involved with this work by volunteering with us!
Finally, as we enjoy this wintery weekend, please remember to support alternatives to burning fossil fuels for the health of our planet and communities and encourage your friends and family to do so too!
We look forward to seeing you soon at one of our upcoming events.
In community,
Derek Hoshiko on behalf of the Kicking Gas Team