Special to the Vanguard
Davis, CA – Cool Davis has announced the last three weeks of sign ups and July dates for online and in-person Q&A and Share sessions for the inaugural Yolo County Earth Day Pledge Challenge plus a significant incentive: an electric moped with a $2600 value. Pledger-curious and full-fledged pledgers are encouraged to attend Q&A and share sessions to ask staff questions and for pledgers to share their stories of success, special strategies, and barriers. More gatherings featuring experts in greening finances, building climate justice, civic engagement, home electrification, and making a household emergency plan, to name a few, are also in the works.
Visit the www.cooldavis.org/pledge webpage for details and updates.
In partnership with the City of Davis, the pledge challenge launched this past April 22 asking Yolo County residents to complete at least six emissions reducing or resilience 
building actions before Earth Day 2024. Pledgers choose from high impact actions ranging from easy to more challenging in categories like diversify your ride, get an energy boost, eat thoughtfully, green finances, and get involved, or choose their own.
So far more nearly 200 Yolo County residents have signed up to do their part to make our communities more sustainable … but staff and volunteers hope to attract many more. To allow for more flexibility, the deadline for signing up for the pledge has been extended to July 31, 2023.
Some of the most popular pledge actions chosen by pledgers so far include biking, busing, or walking to school and errands, pre-cooling and opening windows at night, eating meatless 3 time per week, avoiding palm oil, minimizing food waste, learning about greening finances, beginning a new self-care routine, and planting or adopting a tree.
Pledgers can sign up in person at the Davis Farmer’s Market on most Saturdays and at the Cool Davis Climate Movie Circle documentary screening, held July 16 at the Yolo County Library Davis Branch at 1:30pm. This month’s film is “To the End” featuring activist Varshini Prakash, writer Rhiana Gunn-Wright, political strategist Alexandra Rojas, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Pledgers are also encouraged to post “Why I’m pledging” videos to social media, tagging Cool Davis @cooldaviscity, and using the hashtag #YoloEarthDayPledge2023. Local Frontier Energy expert and Cool Davis board member Kristin Heinemeier’s video is featured on the LiveCoolDavis YouTube channel.
Cool Davis thanks the Russells of Davis for their generous donation of the electric moped incentive. Pledgers who sign up and complete the pledge survey will have a chance to win the moped if they are present at an in-person drawing in September in Davis! More details to follow. Pledgers outside Davis do not need to be present to win. The moped, legally a Class 2 ebike, has a jump seat for a second rider with heavily padded seats and a place to rest your feet. Staff and active volunteers of Cool Davis, the County of Yolo, and cities within the county are not eligible to win.
A Kidz Pledge flyer has also been developed for download separately from the main pledge. Youth are welcome to attend pledger gatherings with family members but will not be included in tracking or surveys. Youth 13 and older are eligible for the electric moped if they take the main pledge but are encouraged to check in with parents first.
Cool Davis Household Engagement Campaign Manager Leslie Crenna hopes residents will “embrace this opportunity to get busy building a better future together. These July gatherings are just the beginning: we plan to host more informal gatherings in the future, and bring in experts for more challenging actions.” Cool Davis just released a set of support documents but “we also want to be responsive and hear from pledgers what works best for them. We hope folks will get busy building new habits, sharing their stories, and learning from friends, family, and neighbors.”
Email coolsolutions@cooldavis.org with questions.
Davis voters already completed one of the actions, by voting down DISC (twice).
They’ll have a chance to complete two more similar actions, but not until 2025 (Covell Village II) and 2026 (Shriner’s).
Don’t know what some of these even mean, but they pale in comparison to the actions I listed.
But there aren’t enough free electric mopeds to reward all of the voters who take “those” actions. Those folks will simply have to look at their actions as its “own” reward.