Kicking Gas: Lower The Burn
by Founder Derek Hoshiko
With little advance notice, and shortly after back to school, I was following up on a whim. A reporter wanted to talk to a student leader I know about how the youth climate movement’s success in getting their city to declare a climate emergency led to a campaign I’ve been running called Kicking Gas, which helps homes transition from combustion fuels for home heating to efficient ductless heat pumps.
I texted the student leader the evening before the interview: “Hey [name], the reporter would like to meet you after school. Is that going to be okay?” The student had 10 minutes to walk out of school, change, and be at sports practice. They informed their coach they’d be a few minutes late.
Youth activists have been at the center of the global climate justice movement these last few years, echoing the demands that the people most impacted and least responsible for the climate crisis have been making for years and decades, but bringing their own moral authority. Young people today will live a vastly disproportionate share of their life in the climate crisis than those who are most responsible. September 15-17 saw the most recent global mobilization, which culminated with a mass action in New York City that drew forty thousand people.
Where I live on Whidbey Island, student leaders were instrumental in getting the City of Langley to declare a climate emergency. This led to the formation of the Langley Climate Crisis Action Committee, which was a key partner in developing the Kicking Gas campaign to help get South Whidbey off of fossil fuels.
As the co-chair emeritus of E3 Washington, I wanted to take this opportunity to update the ESE community on what I’ve been up to. Last fall, I took on the project of Kicking Gas. We pulled together and with the support of an amazing team, we provided awards to support 118 households to transition their home heating in just about 10 months. You can read more about the campaign here.
This experience of working toward the Just Transition in my own community has me wondering about forward thinking ways to educate our young people and our communities.
One approach builds on the work E3 Washington did on the Educating for a Green Economy project, developing and designing pathways to jobs in communities that are aligned with environment, sustainability, and resilience. Throughout Washington State, and especially in rural areas like where I live, we need skilled electricians, solar panel installers, ductless heat pump installers, local manufacturers, project managers, engineers, etc. in order to make the Just Transition happen. I believe we need a greater balance between college track versus career and technical education. More young folks can jump straight into green jobs, and not spend several years in college and accrue the student debt that comes along with it. We also see rural communities undergoing a continual brain drain as young folks move away for opportunities, and find jobs elsewhere. We must work to address this trend to retain the workforce we need for building climate resilient communities.
While Kicking Gas is at a liminal moment between our first year of funding and our next cycle, we are thinking deeply about how to bring forth community people power in our 2024 program. We are planning an ongoing series at our local cafe and bookstore that involves community engagement, dope music with a live DJ, and is multi-generational. We are committed to building connections and cultural programming, while providing engagement opportunities to power up Whidbey’s movement towards full spectrum sustainability.
The brave, response-able student who squeezed an interview in between their school and sports responsibilities, and amidst college applications, and work, is emblematic of the challenge we face in relying on individual sacrifices for the greater good. We are in their debt for taking this action among hundreds of actions like this in spite of these structural challenges. This school year, and every one hence, how might educators and community members amplify youth accessible spaces? And how might we create warmth and light together in the imminent change of season?
