The Mountain View City Council’s ban on natural gas is heavy-handed and a distraction from the real climate change issues facing the planet. To take real action on climate change, we need to stop getting distracted by low-impact fads like banning plastic straws and natural gas in the home, as two recent examples of policies that address far less than 1% of emissions. I work in renewable energy, and as one who devotes his career to the cause, I suggest that we think and plan strategically to work toward making meaningful solutions realizable, rather than adopting a patchwork of unscientific, ineffectual and costly tactics. The meaningful steps that consumers can take to reduce emissions include flying less; driving less or in more efficient cars; eating less meat; using greener energy sources; and living in higher density areas (15% less energy use per capita results from each doubling of city size). The City Council has taken real steps along some of these vectors, for example delivering renewable energy through the Silicon Valley Clean Energy program. If the city wants to move more aggressively, I would suggest considering variants on these policies to incentivize greener...