Meeting Highlights Key Climate Responses: Green Infrastructure and Community Action

Photo by Karen Weber, Foundation for a Green Future

By Eric Smalley

With all the scary news lately about climate change, it’s important to see concrete steps people are taking to make our community more resilient in the face of flooding, heat and other perils. In a presentation on Saturday, GreeningRozzie got a good look at how the city is beginning to use green infrastructure – trees, shrubs, grasses and soil – to absorb storm runoff.

Kate England, who manages the Green Infrastructure/Low Impact Development Program at the Boston Water and Sewer Commission, described four green infrastructure projects in the city, two of which are in Roslindale: a rain garden at the intersection of Bussey and South Streets in the Arboretum, and plantings that replaced pavement in the schoolyard and parking lot at the Washington Irving Middle School on Cummins Highway.

Street flooding from extreme precipitation and the heat island effect – the extra heat from concrete and pavement in urban areas – are two of Roslindale’s principal climate change vulnerabilities. Green infrastructure, from backyard landscaping to large commercial developments to public works projects on city and state on land, addresses those vulnerabilities by improving drainage and replacing heat-storing materials with biomass, said England. Green infrastructure also has co-benefits, including improved air quality and lower crime levels, she said.

England concluded her presentation with four bullet points that are both a recipe for how to induce government responsiveness and a call to action for us:

• Get involved!
• Ask for what you want!
• Get youth involved!
• Think outside the box…

She noted that we can build on initial successes. “Every project is a precedent-setting project,” England said. “As soon as you get one project in the ground that is successful and people like and is being maintained, you can point to it and say ‘That went really well. Why do we try that again? Why don't we try that here?’,” she said.

England’s presentation was followed by a wider discussion with England and Boston City Councilor-at-Large and Roslindale resident Michelle Wu about our responsibility to create a world free of fossil fuels. “We have no other choice but to do it, so I'm actually confident that it will happen and excited to be part of the ride to see this incredible transformation of our society and economy,” said Wu. “But that falls on every single one of us to do whatever we can in any situation.”

Mirroring green infrastructure, our climate change response as a whole has some pretty significant co-benefits, Wu noted. “Every action we need to take to fix our climate crisis is the same set of steps we need to take to eliminate poverty and reduce income inequality,” she said.

GreeningRozzie has been a vehicle for the Roslindale community to take action on climate change. It’s time to step it up. If you weren’t able to attend the meeting, it’s not too late to join your neighbors! Sign up here to help with events, consider serving on the board or let us know what you think.