We've all heard the phrase: If you can't walk the walk, don't talk the talk.

On Earth Day this year, three Princeton professors who regularly influence global, national and regional policy decisions on climate change share how they are walking the walk.

Jesse Jenkins leads Princeton's Zero Lab, which models different scenarios for the energy sector and the grid’s future. He replaced his home’s gas cooktop with an electric induction stove, and he is beta testing a plug-in heat pump window unit that both heats and cools rooms that are tough to keep comfortable. He also drives an all-electric Ford Mustang Mach-E that he purchased in 2022. 

Forrest Meggers is an architect and engineer at the University’s School of Architecture and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. He is overhauling his home heating and cooling systems during a major remodel. The house will have no furnace or air conditioning. Instead, a geothermal heat pump will circulate warm and cool water to radiant heating pipes in the floors and walls. He also installed solar panels of the roof of his house. 

Denise Mauzerall is an environmental engineer and policy scholar at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. Mauzerall bought an efficient electric heat pump to replace her aging natural gas furnace and central air conditioner. The heat pump will both heat and air condition her home using electricity, from a N.J grid that is becoming increasingly clean.