Cool Block | Cool City Challenge | Community Based Empowerment

Gavin Newsom

GOVERNOR of California

“Cool Block is an exemplary how-to guide for local communities to make a significant impact on climate change. This program demonstrates the untapped potential to engage in this grassroots initiative in an effective and achievable way. Very cool, indeed!”

Lori Castellano

Palo Alto Cool Block Leader

"Cool Block has changed things in our neighborhood. Not only have we lowered our carbon footprints and prepared our block for any emergency, but we actually talk to each other, wave to each other and get together regularly even after the program was over."

Become more planet friendly, disaster resilient and community rich.

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Take the
COOL BLOCK Journey...
TOPIC 1

Energy Resilient Home

Prepare your household for energy blackouts.

THE COOL BLOCK, CHAPTER 13
TOPIC 2

Disaster-Resilient HouseHold

Become more resilient as a household in case of a natural disaster.

THE COOL BLOCK, CHAPTER 14
TOPIC 3

Cool Lifestyle

Refine daily lifestyle practices to reduce your carbon footprint.

THE COOL BLOCK, CHAPTER 10
TOPIC 4

Cool Home and Cool Wheels

Make your household and transportation systems more efficient to further reduce your carbon footprint.

THE COOL BLOCK, CHAPTER 11
TOPIC 5

Water Stewardship

Reduce your water use and impact on the local ecosystem.

THE COOL BLOCK, CHAPTER 12
TOPIC 6

Safe, Healthy and Green Block

Make your block a safer, healthier, more beautiful and resilient place to live.

THE COOL BLOCK, CHAPTER 15
TOPIC 7

Resourceful and Community-Rich Block

Share resources with neighbors and create a greater sense of community on your block.

THE COOL BLOCK, CHAPTER 16
TOPIC 8

Living as a Cool Block

Continue the program on your block, expand it to other blocks, engage in broader civic activity and help decarbonize your city.

THE COOL BLOCK, CHAPTER 17

James Keene

Palo Alto City Manager

“Cool Block links the challenges facing our planet to the intimate, personal, social scale of the city block. It starts and ends with the premise and promise—that the individual, household, and neighbors are the way forward in the face of seemingly insoluble global problems.”

Shannon Wells

San Francisco Cool Block Participant

“I learned through the Cool Block program that my neighbors are more like me than I thought. We share a lot of the same goals for our community, and these goals cross cultural and ethnic lines. What I saw was that people are hungry for community and that’s what's offered by Cool Block.”

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Reinvent the world.

The journey begins on the block where you live.

Become more planet friendly, disaster resilient and community rich.

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Experience greater meaning, purpose, community, and the ability to make a difference.

A Deeper Dive into the Cool Block Program.