[verg]

Since many people on HN live in California. The single greatest thing you can do if you live in be an advocate for building more housing in California, especially in locations with public transportation. California has low heating and cooling costs, and existing public transportation networks that can be extended.

Look at the difference in per capita carbon emissions between California and say, Texas, a place where many Californian's are moving to because of high housing costs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_carbon_...

[maxerickson]

I wonder how much the difference in residential heating/cooling really matters.

For example, I looked at natural gas consumption, in Texas industrial use is off the charts, residential is reasonably in line with California (on a per capita basis).

https://www.eia.gov/state/seds/data.php?incfile=/state/seds/...

Of course that is only enough to say that it is necessary to take a closer look, by the time everything is added up it could well be that living in California is substantially better.