Cambridge candidate forum on the environment draws ideas for greenery, reaching net zero goals
Memorial Drive could get even greener, a City Council candidate said at an election forum. (Photo: Kate Wheatley)
Cambridge City Council candidates have some bold ideas for tackling climate change, including elevated bike lanes, reconstructing Memorial Drive and planting a tree for every resident in the city, according to a Tuesday candidate forum.
The forum was hosted by Cambridge Mothers Out Front, 350 Massachusetts-Cambridge, Green Cambridge, the Mystic River Watershed Association and Cambridge City Growers at the Citywide Senior Center. It focused on issues in climate policy, including the city’s tree canopy, Building Energy Use Disclosure Ordinance and the use of fossil fuels in construction. Sixteen candidates participated.
Candidates formed three panels of between four and seven people. Moderators asked each panel the same questions.
A few candidates from the slate of Our Revolution Cambridge, a progressive political organization, said they support expanding the ordinance, called Beudo, which requires large commercial buildings to reach net zero emissions by 2035.
The meeting was recorded by Cambridge Community Television and is online.
Challenger Vernon Walker said that, if elected, he would try to strengthen Beudo by extending it. “I think we’ve taken a step in the right direction, and I’m really grateful for it. I still think we have a little bit more work to do,” Walker said. “I would look to expand Beudo and figure out how we can include residential buildings.”
Ayah Al-Zubi agreed that the City Council needs to expand Beudo, and that the city needs to hold its universities, especially Harvard, responsible for their emissions. Al-Zubi, another challenger, graduated from Harvard in the spring.
“Here’s the reality: emissions are something we need to address constantly,” Al-Zubi said.
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler, who served on the council from 2020 to 2021, also liked the idea of expanding Beudo, though he didn’t mention residential buildings specifically. He also suggested how Cambridge might spend some of the money it received through the Inflation Reduction Act: to “to add renewal energy infrastructure to our public buildings,” Sobrinho-Wheeler said.
New ideas
When asked about the city’s tree canopy, challenger Doug Brown said he would like the city to plant larger trees, fill all empty tree wells and conduct a comprehensive tree health survey. He also proposed that the city plant one tree for each of its residents.
“As a goal, rather than tracking 20,000 street trees, I’d like to see one per person – so that’s 120,000 street trees. That’s ambitious, but other cities are doing that, and I think it’s important we think like them,” Brown said.
Also on the issue of Cambridge’s canopy, challenger Federico Muchnik suggested that the city start a “Trees for Tots” campaign introducing environmentalism to grade-school students.
“Every incoming kindergartener would have a tree assigned to them, and they get to track the progress of that tree over the course of its life so that the city will not chop that tree down,” Muchnik said.
Councillor Burhan Azeem, when asked about green space in the city, said Memorial Drive was a prime location to potentially add more.
“I’ve been a really big supporter of Memorial Drive, of closing it over the weekend so we have more green space and more space to walk and enjoy ourselves,” Azeem said. “One of the big things I’ve been talking about is redoing Memorial Drive so it goes from four lanes down to two, and we have extra green space in that area.”
On the topic of road infrastructure, challenger Carrie Pasquarello said that Cambridge had a way to improve its bike lanes while also improving their sustainability.
“I know we have a better innovative way that we could do our bike lanes, that literally could make our community really stellar. And that would be elevated bike lanes with possibly solar panels on top. We could be so much more innovative,” Pasquarello said.
How about we start with more trees, more solar power on city buildings and parking lots plus electric vehicles for the city.
Let’s also not let all the trees die due to negligence.
Carrie, people aren’t going to forget your tweets when you sound like Trump talking about the tremendous, most beautiful bike lanes you’ve ever seen
Are there any candidates who are running who are realists? Or have talked to scientists? In an Oct 5 article published by WBUR, the reporter spoke with the principal climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. She told the reporter that staying under 1.5 C is now “largely unrealistic.”
https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2023/10/03/1-5-degrees-celcius-un-climate-change-report-barbara-moran
In 2022, the average global temperature was about 1.15 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. This past May, the World Meteorological Organization issued a report that projected a significant likelihood (66 percent) that the world would exceed the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold in the next four years. Because of the recent El Nino, The WMO predicts that, for each of the next four years, the global average temperature is likely to swing between 1.1 and 1.8 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. (By the way, I’ve gotten this info from an August 27 article in MIT News.)
So it makes me wonder if any of these candidates knows what Cambridge plans for helping its citizens through the extreme weather conditions that will become a regular thing, in an ever growing feedback loop, during the lifetimes of every one of us and our kids and grandkids. I have to admit I read about the “elevated bike lanes” and for a second I thought maybe someone was thinking of the storm flooding that will be happening regularly. But I guess not.
I remember I was watching the Cambridge School Committee meeting the day that epidemiologist William Hanage came into the room and read a statement to the committee about a very infectious coronavirus that was being reported in various parts of the world. He had a really, really urgent tone and pleaded with the committee to start making plans for coming school disruptions. After he read his statement he had to return right back to work. I still remember the shocked faces of all the members, especially the mayor’s face, then they continued the meeting as usual.
For years now we’ve had scientists telling the world that disruptions from climate change are headed our way. So again I ask, is there a Council candidate who is familiar with what Cambridge plans to do when this place gets even hotter, gets even wetter, and people start arriving from worse-off places and citizens with means start leaving for higher ground in cooler places? Are all of our neighborhoods currently designed to capture and soundly disperse excess water? Are there plans to rip out any of the heat-emitting excess concrete on some of our streets?
I keep the “Resilient Cambridge Closer Neighborhoods Technical Report” open on my computer because it gives me some hope that there are people in our local government thinking of the needs of some of our most vulnerable when unpredictability becomes the norm. I just wish I could hear more awareness from Council members, because otherwise what are they there for?
Are there any candidates who are running who are realists? Or have talked to scientists?
Answer: No
Hey RetiredKM,
1) Carrie is an incredibly sweet and kind person. She has three dedicated children all of whom serve in the Cambridge Police Department.
2) She has far more integrity than some random anonymous person throwing shade.
Pasquarello is an open bigot who positively retweets Neo-nazis. Cut the BS.
Patrick Barrett, will you please stop being a bully on every subject, every week?
@harmonicat- If you want a candidate knowledgeable on resiliency, you should look at Vernon Walker. He was program director at Communities Responding to Extreme Weather, which is focused on resiliency. He is now Climate Justice Program Director at Clean Water Action.