Climate Change Mitigation in Boston, Massachusetts: What Is and Could Be Done

This paper looks into the City of Boston’s efforts to mitigate climate change and compares these efforts to potential ones. An introduction to climate change and social science concepts that affect the response to climate change are provided as background information. The City of Boston’s Climate Action Plan Update (2011) is used to overview Boston’s climate change mitigation efforts, with some deviation to initiatives in other cities. I argue that more effective policy is hampered by the failure of policy-makers to question three assumptions. I identify these assumptions and offer initiatives that would refute them and, in doing so, work as more effective policy