Embrace the Pledge! The Earth Day Pledge Challenge asks Yolo County residents to complete at least six specific greenhouse gas reducing or resilience building actions before the next Earth Day rolls around in 2024. Cool Davis identifies high impact actions and ways to achieve them; you get busy building new habits, sharing your story, and learning from friends, family, and neighbors.

April 22 is Earth Day! New pledges accepted thru July 22, 2023

Sign up to PLEDGE NOW

Cool Davis pledges to give lots of “how to” information, answer direct questions, forward tricky ones to volunteer experts, facilitate communication and gatherings for pledgers, and catalyze creative celebrations when it’s all done. If all goes well, we’ll do it again next year!

Join Cool Davis and partners at our launch and in-person pledging opportunity at the Blanchard Room of the Yolo County Library Stephens Davis Branch at 315 E. 14th Street, Davis, on Sunday, April 23rd from 4pm to 5pm. Volunteers will be helping you pledge and capture 2-minute “Why I’m pledging” videos and serving up FREE popcorn. Post your own videos to social media, tag us @cooldaviscity, and use the hashtag #YoloEarthDayPledge2023. This follows the April Climate Movie Circle. Interested? Learn more.

HOW TO SIGN UP

1. Visit the webpage www.cooldavis.org/pledge (or scan our QR code)

2. Click “Sign up” and register using an email you will continue to check and use over the next year!

3. Take the survey and pick 1 or more actions in each of 6 categories

4. Invite friends, share with your family or housemates

5. Start working on your pledge actions

6. Finish by Earth Day 2024 … or earlier in January!

7. Celebrate with other pledgers!

HOW DOES IT WORK?

  • After pledging, you’ll receive confirmation and information
  • Add coolsolutions@cooldavis.org to your contacts
  • You’ll receive a link to your own personal pledging and reporting survey
  • We’ll resend the link to your survey every 3 months for updates

CONNECT

  • Ask about basics at coolsolution@cooldavis.org
  • Use our support docs to get started
  • Receive action-specific tips and resources
  • Gather with other pledgers in-person and online
  • Ask our volunteer experts advanced questions

CELEBRATE

  • Gather to get inspired
  • Host your own gatherings with friends or neighbors
  • We’ll have a doosie when it’s all done

SHARE YOUR STORY

  • Share your “Why I’m pledging” story with Cool Davis
  • Use #YoloEarthDayPledge2023 and tag us @cooldaviscity (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn)

FINE POINTS

  • Don’t sweat the details! You don’t have to succeed 100%, just start where you are and do what you can!
  • Already doing these actions? Select and extend them if you wish. For example, if you “bike, bus, or walk to shopping or eating out” at least 3 times every month already, extend that to 6 times.
  • Actions don’t work for you? If actions don’t work for you, choose Other and tell us about your cool action!
  • Changed your mind? Changing your mind is okay! Tell us about your shifts in progress reports and work on those.

Email coolsolutions@cooldavis.org with questions

SIGN UP TO PLEDGE NOW

Seeking Partners and Sponsors

Our current list of partners includes the Cool Davis Coalition, the Yolo Interfaith Alliance for Climate Justice, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis Climate Crisis Action Team (CCAT), and, as always, the City of Davis. We’re continuing to work to expand this list and are happy to include your organization!

We ask our pledge partners to share pledge materials internally and create “Why I’m pledging” videos for sharing. We would love to add your logo to our pledge webpage.

We’re also seeking sponsors! Funds will be used to provide incentives to pledgers in the form of grocery gift cards, action prompts (like clothes drying racks), and Earth friendly swag, as well as print materials and advertisements.

Please inquire via email with coolsolutions@cooldavis.org for more details and information.

Share on social media #YoloEarthDayPledge2023 and tag us @cooldaviscity (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram). We’re at LiveCoolDavis on YouTube.

Pledge here: https://www.cooldavis.org/pledge

Volunteers, Fellows, and Interns Make It Happen

A huge thanks for all the people in this community who are making the pledge happen! Starting with our board, who will be sharing the pledge alongside our Big Day of Giving drive in May, to our Household Engagement Sacramento Valley College Corps Fellows, Nala Haley and Karen Castaneda, to mega-volunteer Database Manager Marsha Baird, to many informal advisors plus our Advisory Team comprised of board member Ken Kirsch of MAK Design Build, Maryam Farhangfar, Jose Tomas Diaz Casanueva, Frances Tauzer, Brittney Nial, and our newest member, UC Davis Community Development intern, Nick Murphy. Past volunteers include Alana Gamage, Gail Kennedy, Cameron Bonnell, Jess Frisbie, Carson Poe, Natalie Aguilar, Yun Han, and Jenny Zhong. Their experitise, passion, and dedication have made this journey, so far, exciting and full of expectation. We are excited about developing and promoting the pledge and seeing where it goes!

SIGN UP TO PLEDGE NOW

THE PLEDGE MENU

PLEDGE MENU

  1. Diversify your ride

Transportation accounts for about 70% of fossil fuel emissions regionally and most of that is from combustion cars. Air travel emissions aren’t fully included in that pie!

  • Encourage 1x month at least 1 person to ride a bike, bus, or walk
  • Bike, bus, or walk to work, school, or errands 3x per week (or more)
  • Reduce air travel emissions
  • Buy and use an electric vehicle, ebike, or e-scooter as your primary mode of transport
  1. Get an energy boost

Increasing temperatures and more frequent extreme heat events are leading to even more critical demand for space cooling, resulting in outages and other related stresses.

  • Pre-cool your home during summer to avoid peak usage and rates
  • Open windows to cool your home at night during summer months
  • Hang your clothes to dry instead of using a dryer for 3 weeks of the month
  • Install a whole house fan
  • Get your attic insulated
  • Get rooftop solar with battery storage
  • Make a plan to electrify your home
  1. Eat thoughtfully

Simply reducing the quantity of meat you consume can have a huge impact. Animal agriculture contributes significantly to biodiversity loss, land deforestation, and land degradation globally. Food waste is also a serious problem.

  • Watch a documentary about plant based eating from our series or choose your own
  • Set up a monthly plant-based meal or potluck with friends or family
  • Eat a meatless meal 3 times per week
  • Avoid palm oil starting with reading labels
  • Strategize to minimize food waste
  • Give up or significantly reduce high impact foods like beef, pork, lamb, or dairy
  • Switch to a vegetarian or plant-based diet
  1. Get involved

Getting involved means a better future for everyone. Extend your impact and enrich your life!

  • Share about your pledge with 5 friends or family every month (talk about it!)
  • Start or join a neighborhood connecting, sharing, or safety group
  • Host a connecting event for your friends, family, neighborhood, church, or school
  • Volunteer with a climate or resilience organization, community garden, or school environmental club
  • Attend City Council and/or City Commission meetings for agenda topics related to climate and resilience
  1. Green your finances

Many commercial banks, companies, and funds perpetuate climate chaos by lending, investing, or engaging in new infrastructure projects or other environmentally damaging activities.

  • Learn about greening your finances and why it’s important
  • Move your money to an ethical and fossil-free bank or credit union
  • Open a credit card with an ethical institution and select an organization to support
  • Make a (significant-for-you) donation to a climate organization
  • Change your investments to be socially responsible and fossil free
  1. Build resilience

Resilience is the ability to persevere in the face of severe climate impacts and other societal disruptions and redefinitions. Resilient people and communities meet challenges with openness and turn them into opportunities.

  • Make a household emergency plan and kit
  • Make a commitment to learn about and act on climate injustices
  • Offer or ask for assistance from a neighbor
  • Begin a new self-care routine
  • Plant or adopt a fruit producing or climate ready shade tree
  • Replace grass with drought tolerant plants and drip irrigation

PLEDGE NOW

Share on social media #YoloEarthDayPledge2023 and tag us @cooldaviscity (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram). We’re at LiveCoolDavis on YouTube.

Email coolsolution@cooldavis.org with questions

Pledge here: https://www.cooldavis.org/pledge