Mayoral roundup: Connolly says we need to pull a Bloomberg on climate change

They could start with buses and detail cops. It is shocking how much pollution is attributable to this. There is also a clear financial benefit to the pubic in terms of gas savings.

The Globe surveyed the candidates and the vast majority just could not shut up about helmets and "enforcement" against cyclists. Oh, and some of them want to collect more statistics and "study" the problem more.

The city compiles a report about safety, finds that SURPRISE red light running doesn't cause many injuries at all, especially not compared to people "not seeing" cyclists (aka not paying attention) and dooring them....and it's like the report never happened.

Why should we study cyclist injuries and deaths when politicians are ignoring the existing data and reports? They're just pandering to the driving majority for votes.

'Asthma' disproportionately allows able bodied people with poor job prospects to avoid the indignity of having to work for minimum wage with a disability check.

How is the Harbor a source of air pollution?

I'm sure someone her could explain it to me, but how does water generate anything that would cause pollution?

This is not to say that East Boston, South Boston, and/or Dorchester are not affected by air pollution, but I would imagine that vehicles would be much worse than water.

Although many of the environmental proposals now being made by politicians at the level of city government are really pie in the sky, promoting energy efficiency and retrofitting is not, and is something that would make a huge difference. Considering that many energy efficiency programs are already financed through the utility companies by state law, one thing that City government could do would be to simply advertise their existence and help facilitate people actually taking advantage of them. Having gone through the process of insullating a home and retrofitting a heating system through these programs, I can say that one of the chief obstacles is simply the application process. Having a small staff within the City government dedicated to helping homeowners and businesses navigate the process would be a low cost measure that could have real effects.

How about improving mass transit?

I'd like to see a candidate with a proposal to make the Green Line and local buses not suck as much, so you could get from the western or southern parts of the city to downtown in less than an hour.

it sucks - if you're going by the books it's a several month review process to change a light fixture. the absolute last thing we need is anything resembling the kafka-esque NYC building permit review process. stretch code is better.

energy audits - we'll all learn that the big glass buildings are the biggest consumers of energy.

Connolly is claiming he led the city's adoption of the STATE's stretch code that pretty much everyone is doing anyway? big whoop.

and urban agriculture doesn't really have anything to do with climate change - in fact, it's more energy intensive to produce crops in the city - it's really mostly good for education tied to health issues.

Conley is right that diesel-burning cargo ships cause a lot of pollution - but aside from forcing massport to make plug-ins for ships at the port instead of them running their engines - is this really something Boston can do? seems like a federal issue. it's far easier to grapple with exhaust from diesel-burning motor vehicles using city roads- Dublin Ireland has banned semi-trailers from the city center (goods are distributed by smaller trucks) - partly out of pedestrian and cyclist safety, but it also had the effect of reducing pollution and produces much less wear and tear on city streets... so - he could kill two birds with one stone. I worry about Conley's commitment to bike infrastructure - someone who wants to push mandatory helmet laws clearly doesn't give a crap about creating more off-street paths.