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By Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone

Right now, we’re in the middle of SustainaVille Week – Somerville’s weeklong Earth Day. Now in its third year, the week’s activities focus on concrete actions we can take to reduce our carbon footprint and ways to make our city a greener place to live. Already this week we’ve planted trees, had an early celebration for the start of Bike Month in May, and toured homes where residents have made both big and small energy saving changes.

We try to have some fun with the events to get as many people as possible involved, but the driving purpose behind SustainaVille Week could not be more serious. Many of us can remember when the phrase “think globally and act locally” was in vogue. As it turns out, our climate now depends on it. Our children and grandchildren stand to inherit a world full of trouble if we don’t take action.

I understand how daunting it can feel to tackle a problem of this enormity and complexity. But it’s up to us to make sure our small spot on the globe does its part and can show others how it’s done. Fortunately, we have a guide to help get us there. Recently City staff and the Somerville Climate Forward working group released the Somerville Climate Forward Plan – it takes a look at where we are now and where we need to be to make an impact on climate change.

When I say “we” I mean both the residents of Somerville and our local government. On the City side, we’ve installed LED streetlights, set up electric vehicle charging stations, and swapped out old, oil-burning boilers. As a local government we’ve reduced our greenhouse gas emissions from vehicle fuel, electric, and heating. Our municipal buildings are approaching our goal of reducing our energy usage by 20%.

We pride ourselves in being a progressive community, and this is real progress. Yet this has been the easiest part of achieving carbon neutrality. We’ve picked most of the low-hanging fruit. The next steps are going to require us to make systematic changes in order to achieve greater energy efficiency. Beyond that, energy efficiency alone cannot reduce our load to zero. We need to look at major shifts in where our energy comes from, how we get around, and how much waste we produce.

We need to move toward net-zero buildings as we are planning for the new public safety building. We also must beef up our energy management skills to understand where we can make substantial gains and to recognize the difference between quick fixes and true sustainability.

We’re about to go out to bid again for our citywide electricity contract. Our current agreement serves 94% of Somerville, providing both more clean energy and greater household savings. We will be looking to procure as much renewable energy as possible while staying cost neutral to Eversource prices. A big part of the Climate Forward Plan is making sure environmental justice includes economic justice. We can’t raise rates oblivious to the reality that higher energy prices could cause serious financial stress to lower income households.

Climate action is a constant balancing act and it’s important to recognize that none of this is going to be easy. Climate action intersects with every other issue our city faces: cost of living, education, transportation, public works, public safety, recreation. We may be in the middle of SustainaVille Week, but sustainability will touch upon everything we do every day, every week, every month, every year.

And I would be remiss not to mention a sustainability project many of us spent decades fighting for that is taking place right now. You may have noticed the Green Line Extension is in full swing. We have construction zone and bridge closures. It’s nearly impossible to miss, and it serves as a reminder of the magnitude of the project.

Once it is completed, it will remove millions of vehicle trips from our local roads every year. That is massive in terms of environmental impact. When the GLX is completed, 85% of Somerville residents live within a half-mile of a T station (as opposed to our current 15%), and it will become easier to live here without a car. How we plan our city, what we build, and how we use our road space will enter a whole new era.

It’s going to take big projects like the GLX and smaller changes like using less plastic in our day-to-day lives to get us to where we need to be. We can’t tackle climate change alone, but

when we look back a couple of decades from now, we’re going to see a Somerville that took sustainability seriously, and the magnitude of those changes is going to be something to behold.

There’s a lot more planned for this week, and it all culminates with our Annual Spring Clean Up on Saturday, May 4. If you’re interested, you can find the full SustainaVille schedule of events at www.somervillema.gov/sustainavilleweek.