A board tasked with moving Brookline to zero carbon emissions by 2040 has begun planning how the town might get there, and is eyeing what may seem like drastic changes to how people live.
Among its early ideas discussed at a meeting in July: banning gas cars from traveling through Brookline, placing electric vehicle chargers in all public parking spaces, replacing all existing fossil fuel appliances with electric ones, and including solar panels and batteries in as many buildings as possible.
Brookline’s Zero Emissions Advisory Board (ZEAB) was created to ensure that Brookline adheres to its official Climate Action Plan, which calls for the town to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2040, ten years before the state of Massachusetts has vowed to achieve the same goal. That plan was voted into action in 2021 by Brookline Town Meeting after the town overwhelmingly voted to declare the climate crisis an emergency.
“Our whole lives include burning fuels. To get people to understand that we should change that – and it’s not a judgment on them – is going to take a lot of conversation.” ZEAB Chair Wendy Stahl said. “We have to stop using gas-powered cars … We have to transition every single one of our appliances that burn something into an electric appliance: dryers, water heaters, home heaters. If we’re going to net zero, it’s just a fact that we have to.”
“Net zero” for carbon emissions means that carbon sinks — mechanisms that draw carbon out of the air, such as trees — will subtract carbon from the atmosphere at the same rate it is being released. Brookline is working to expand its greenery and tree canopy, but that still won’t be enough to balance the town’s emissions, Stahl said.
Recent reports paint a sobering picture. According to Climate Central’s Surging Seas risk finder, there is a 99% likelihood that Brookline will experience a flood at levels 10 feet above the current sea level before the year 2130.
“We can’t do what this country has been doing for the last 30 years, which is putting our head in the sand,” said Werner Lohe, a ZEAB member. “If we don’t slow climate change, it doesn’t matter how big a dike we put at the edge of the harbor, Brookline is going to be flooded in 100 years.”
A Climate Vulnerability Assessment of Brookline, done by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council in 2017, predicts that by 2099, 24-85 days of the year will be over 90 degrees. From the 1970s-2000s, it was only that hot for an average of nine days a year. The assessment states that rising temperatures will negatively affect the town’s aquatic and wetland resources, as well as the animals that live in the community. Hall’s Pond in north Brookline has already shrunk slightly due to erosion, and Lost Pond in south Brookline is impacted by eutrophication, which occurs when excess pesticides leak into a body of water and upset the aquatic ecosystem.
Brookline has a history of being on the forefront of climate advocacy.
Three years ago, Town Meeting passed a bylaw banning fossil fuels from new buildings and existing buildings which are undergoing major renovations. The state’s attorney general initially ruled that Brookline lacked the governmental or legal power to enforce the rule, but the town ultimately became part of a state pilot project testing that approach, which is set to start next year.
“We were the first town east of the Rocky Mountains to do that,” Lohe said. “It seemed like a radical thing a few years ago,… but it’s the obvious thing to do.”
“Generally, Brookline has been supportive of climate action. [We’re] a very climate forward community.” Stahl said. “But there is always pushback when it comes to suggesting such a large change.”
As confident as Stahl is that the town is eager to work with ZEAB, she cautions that talking about climate change isn’t enough any more. “Words don’t have any say over the temperature of our climate,” she said. “ Only actions do.”
ZEAB’s next meeting is this Thursday, August 10, at 5 p.m.