(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries and letters to the Editor of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers.)

To the editor:

It was exciting to read that Mayor Curtatone prioritized climate change in his mid-term address (“City government roars back into action for 2019 and beyond”). In 2014, Curtatone announced Somerville’s goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050, placing Somerville among the nation’s leaders a year before the Paris Agreement. This was a matter of civic pride for many Somerville residents.

Since then, Somerville has fallen back. To be sure, the city has taken concrete and necessary steps to tackle climate. But other cities have more aggressively enacted ordinances, changed municipal practices and, importantly, adjusted their budgets to reflect their climate change priorities. Somerville Climate Forward, the city’s newly launched climate action plan that the Mayor referenced in his address, is a major step toward returning Somerville to the pole position.

But it will only happen if the newly renamed city council and the city administration have the courage to enact the ordinances, practices and budgets that Somerville Climate Forward lays out, for example, by doing all it will take to ensure the Central Hill campus and other municipal buildings have net zero emissions (even though the new high school won’t). That’s what it would take to sustain Somervillians’ civic pride.

Larry Yu
Somerville