Hey Yolo, you’re so cool!

Yolo residents have long been convinced that they live in the coolest county this side of the Mississippi, and now they have some street cred to back it up. Yolo is one of 12 charter counties to join the Cool Counties Climate Stabilization Declaration by pledging to reduce its emissions 80 percent by 2050. The county plans to create a greenhouse-gas inventory to track emissions and will be starting several new programs to achieve annual reductions of 2 percent. The Cool Counties collaborative will spearhead a national effort by asking Congress to adopt federal reductions and increase fuel economy standards to 35 miles per gallon within the next 10 years. Cool Counties is a sister initiative to the Cool Cities campaign started in 2005 by the Sierra Club. More than 600 cities have signed the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement to become Cool Cities, agreeing to drastically reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions and implement energy-saving programs.