Cambridge Climate Congress taking steps toward reducing carbon footprint

PUBLISHED by The Cambridge Chronicle

Cambridge--Banning plastic water bottles, offering mortgages based on energy efficiency, and charging for trash pickup by the volume were only a few of the suggestions Cambridge residents made for reducing the city’s carbon footprint at the Cambridge Climate Conference on Saturday.

A group of concerned citizens proposed the idea for the conference to Mayor Denise Simmons last month, and the mayor’s office selected 100 delegates from a pool of diverse applicants to participate in the discussion this past weekend. City staff volunteers led and recorded brainstorming sessions in small groups between lectures about global warming.


“When we had a meeting several months ago about the climate emergency, we looked around the room and saw the same people that are at every meeting,” said Simmons. “In order to sustain the movement, we need to grow it out.”

The city chose delegates from various organizations and demographics not only to expand the range of voices in the conversation about climate change, but also to foster an educational environment, said Simmons. She said she hopes delegates will share what they have learned with their organizations, families and neighborhoods.

In one group, delegates included a climate expert, a Harvard student, an active churchgoer, a senior citizen, a high school student and other concerned citizens. Together, the group proposed goals such as finding a credible way to regularly measure politicians’ goals, along with looking to make “black carbon” one of the greenhouse gasses included in the national reduction targets.

Black carbon, which appears in the form of black smoke, can cause global warming by blanketing glaciers and causing them to melt, explained Milton Bevington, a senior adviser to Social Entrepreneurs and former director of the William J. Clinton Foundation. Other group members expressed shock that the gas was not a part of the national reduction goal.

“I’m just dumbfounded because I thought I knew stuff,” said Laurie Leyshon of the Massachusetts Green Jobs Coalition. “I’m from coal country in Pennsylvania where there’s black soot everywhere.”

The groups discussed topics by answering questions delivered by a moderator, moving from sharing personal thoughts about the climate problems to making specific recommendations to the city. The city plans to compile all suggestions and send them out to the delegates, who will review the list and reconvene on Jan. 23 to agree on specific recommendations to the city council.

Though Simmons expressed confidence that the Council is eager to implement the Congress’ recommendations in 2010, some delegates cited areas in which city lawmakers themselves could easily improve its energy efficiency.

“If they’re setting examples for the city, they should be required to walk to work,” said Lara Gordon, a Realtor and resident of the Area 4 neighborhood.

Before making her closing remarks, Simmons passed off a stack of 100 handwritten cards with delegates’ suggestions to Councilor Henrietta Davis just before she left for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen last Saturday afternoon. Davis will be in Copenhagen for the week, meeting with leaders of other major cities.

“Cities are the core of the changes made so far concerning the climate problem. We’ll help each other and share our best practices,” said Davis. “What better preparation [for the conference] could I possibly have?”