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Election roundup: Candidate, entire staff not swept out to sea by rogue wave so instead he calls for 24-hour T service
By adamg on Thu, 07/25/2013 - 11:49pm
Bill Walczak traveled to Malibu Beach today to push an agenda for dealing with climate change by both preparing the city for a rising sea - increased protection of buffering marshes and other steps to protect local buildings and infrastructure - and decreasing the city's production of greenhouse gases.
Among his proposals: 24-hour T service and converting bus and commuter-rail lines to electric service to reduce diesel emissions.
Compare to John Connolly's environmental blueprint.
Note: The Walczak campaign, which sent us this photo, did not explain why their candidate was holding a plastic light saber.
Rob Consalvo, meanwhile, released his detailed plan to fight crime, that focuses on technology - think ShotSpotter - and both citywide and neighborhood-specific programs, such as more summer jobs in crime-heavy areas.
John Connolly released a new video about education:
Yvonne Abraham basically called Charles Yancey's mayoral run a fraud.
The Herald looked at Hispanic voters and developers.
David Bernstein talked with Jean-Claude Sanon, running for Consalvo's District 5 city-council seat.
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Comments
Oh, please...
By 2100 the Brimmer Street garage will be under about 8 feet of water and there isn't a goddamned thing this idiot politician can do about it. You want to do something about it? Buy real estate in Belmont or Waltham. It'll be waterfront property someday.
Buy real estate in Belmont or
Buy real estate in Belmont or Waltham. It'll be waterfront property someday.
Well, that too will be underwater someday. Boston and Springfield are both too low-lying if all the ice melts; but Worcester will still be okay, and not too far from the highest possible shoreline; buy land there.
Problem
the city of hills will become the city of islands, no?
Who woud've thunk it?
Worcester - the new Venice
No, no. Even low lying points
No, no. Even low lying points in Worcester like Lake Quinsigamond are still above the point of maximum sea level rise (which is about 280 feet above the current sea level, IIRC). Worcester will remain high and dry. But there would be a new coast at least as close as Westborough, and with Worcester being the biggest remaining city, it's possible that greater Worcester will expand. (You know, if civilization doesn't collapse, etc.)
Though by then it might have been renamed Otisville.
I've always wanted to live on an island
I and our fellow residents of the hills of Roslindale, West Roxbury and Hyde Park will be sitting pretty. Better get a boat, though.
And the wood pilings will be safe
For all those old buildings downtown - but you won't want to live on the first floor or possibly even the second.
How much does it cost to convert a window into a door with a dock attached anyway?
You can live on an island right now
"I've always wanted to live on an island"
You can live on an island right now and still be in Boston. Move to East Boston.
I'm thinking
We all will need to retreat further inland to escape global warming. The rust belt could see a new resurgence.
Nope.
If the worst case scenario becomes true, humanity is going to have to eek out a living at the high latitudes and on the coasts.
A global temperature rise of 5-6C would put inland America well beyond the temperatures of Death Valley. Much of the interior of the continents will be uninhabitable and wastelands.
Seeing as we're on track to blow past 2C (400ppm CO2), it's also not looking like the upper bound anymore.
How do you know there's
How do you know there's nothing a new mayor (who would presumably continue to control the BRA) could do about it?
Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Do any of these buffoons actually have a vision for this city's future? I'm not encouraged by what I see. Menino is backward,small-time city mayor with no new ideas. These clowns actually make him look good.
Hmm...
Some of these things are longggg term project which would be phased in perhaps over decades. It's like how state-level politicians use South Coast Rail to entice voters time after time, not because they actually want it to go through any time soon, but because it's a carrot on a stick.
Also, electrification of buses? Even the best of circumstances would require overhead wires to recharge batteries in certain stretches. And we all know NIMBYs just LOVE an overhead cable.
Electrification of buses
Electrification of buses would be a giant gaffe. Electric buses, on the other hand, are a great long-term goal. There is no successful future for mankind in which clean electricity is not a central feature. If the MBTA is around in 100 years, the buses will be battery-powered, not strung up on some idiotic cables like the 71/73.
Am I the only one excited to
Am I the only one excited to hear somebody at least talking about a very real problem. If you ignore climate change it's not going to get better so let's start the conversation now.
He's a Politician
not an Oceanographer or Climatologists. He will say what you want to hear.
Sure, but its the politicians
Sure, but its the politicians who can give voice to a cause.
What a voice of
IGNORANCE
So what's your plan? Just
So what's your plan? Just wish the problem away.
Maybe trying
Voting for someone who isn't a carrier pol! I know how difficult that may be to comprehend, particularly after putting that bag of bones Markey in office.
*career*
Auto correct strikes again!
Malibu Beach
Sorry Bill, but we would have preferred you showing up with a bunch of no littering signs and a cop or two who are instructed ticket all the pigs who feel like leaving their trash on the ground even though they're literally three feet away from the nearest trash can. Instead you show up with the usual empty promise BS. Go back to where you came from, Mr nonprofit millionaire.
Right, totally saw Walsh down
Right, totally saw Walsh down there picking up trash...not. Plus it's not like it's a State beach and he's a State rep....oh.
Non-issue
What a non-issue. But if he's for 24 hour T service I'm all for it.
Seriously.
Why improve the subway when it's just going to fill up with sea water?
Well, then the solution is clearly...
...to completely encapsulate MBTA trackbeds and tunnels in vacuum sealed tubes and convert them into ultra-high speed maglev lines!
Imagine, 0 to 200 as fast as the general public can withstand the g-force!
Why do anything
Why get an education when you're just going to die eventually?
Why do anything at all when the Sun is going to consume the Earth in 5 billion years or so?
And the cessation of tectonic activity may reduce the Earth to an uninhabitable husk long before that?
And the inevitable heat death/collapse of the Universe at some point beyond that?