Governance for a Changing Climate: Adapting Boston’s Built Environment for Increased Flooding

Climate Change is impacting everything in our society and in our world. The changes we are already experiencing are starting to multiply and accelerate. Determining how to respond to this new reality wisely within the governance and governmental structures that we have built is a complex challenge. Some might argue it is humankind’s greatest test. Given the monumental size of this task, it is difficult to simultaneously address all of the related issues both broadly and deeply. This is the third and final in a series of reports from the Sustainable Solutions Lab that were sponsored by the Boston Green Ribbon Commission with the generous support of the Barr Foundation. The goal of these reports was to build on the work done by the Climate Ready Boston process and explore select topics in more depth. This report takes a deep dive into a single issue: how the structure and tools of the local, regional, and state government can be modified and enhanced to minimize the impacts of climate changed-induced flooding (due to both sea level rise and increased precipitation) on Boston’s built environment. The goal here is to build on the two previous reports and help chart a path forward with both immediate next steps and transformational thinking

Governance for a Changing Climate: Adapting Boston's Built Environment for Increased Flooding

As this report indicates, implementing CRB is necessary but not sufficient to prepare Boston's built environment for the freshwater and coastal flooding anticipated to result from climate change. Additional steps we must take include reforming existing tools, monitoring and evaluating flood adaptation activities, and establishing governance for district-scale coastal flood protection implementation. This report presents an array of options for moving forward. Over the next year or so, the City and relevant stakeholders will need to come together and decide which, if any, of these options provide the best paths forward for a more resilient city and region.We recommend that the Governor of Massachusetts and the Mayor of Boston establish a joint commission to explore the options and determine a path forward. There is an opportunity for us to learn from the transition to clean energy as we prepare for climate change impacts. We recommend that the legislature take a leadership role in this effort as well, in order to evaluate the different options available to the Commonwealth as we attempt to address this dynamic challenge

CLIMATE READY BOSTON: Climate Change and Sea Level Rise Projections for Boston, The Boston Research Advisory Group Report

This report summarizes the current understanding of the local factors that influence Boston’s future exposure to climate change risks. The following four risk factors were considered most relevant to Boston and are therefore evaluated in this report: sea-level rise, extreme precipitation, coastal storms and extreme temperatures. For each risk factor, a team of scientific experts, comprised of a team leader and three or more team members, was selected to evaluate and summarize the available information contained in both grey (reports, conference proceedings and the like) and peer-reviewed literature. Each team met independently between October 2015 and January 2016, and team leaders had regular teleconferences with the UMass Boston project team to keep them apprised of progress and to help overcome problems that were encountered. The process for reaching consensus is outlined in the next section

Feasibility of Harbor-wide Barrier Systems: Preliminary Analysis for Boston Harbor

The aim of this study is to provide the City of Boston with a preliminary assessment of the feasibilities and potential benefits, costs, and environmental impacts of three harborwide barrier configurations. While this study is not comprehensive, and there are many ways that further research could refine and extend its findings, those findings were clear enough to justify making recommendations for next steps. The authors recommend that the City continue to focus its climate resilience strategy for the next several decades on the shore-based multi-layered approach described in Climate Ready Boston. Shore-based solutions would provide flood management more quickly at a lower cost, offer several key advantages over a harbor-wide barrier, and provide more flexibility in adapting and responding to changing conditions, technological innovations, and new information about global sea level rise. These shore-based solutions would be needed in any case over the next few decades to manage coastal flooding during the design and construction period of a harbor-wide barrier if a decision was made to build one in the future

Intercellular Communication in Tumor Biology: A Role for Mitochondrial Transfer

Intercellular communication between cancer cells and other cells in the tumor microenvironment plays a defining role in tumor development. Tumors contain infiltrates of stromal cells and immune cells that can either promote or inhibit tumor growth, depending on the cytokine/chemokine milieu of the tumor microenvironment and their effect on cell activation status. Recent research has shown that stromal cells can also affect tumor growth through the donation of mitochondria to respiration-deficient tumor cells, restoring normal respiration. Nuclear and mitochondrial DNA mutations affecting mitochondrial respiration lead to some level of respiratory incompetence, forcing cells to generate more energy by glycolysis. Highly glycolytic cancer cells tend to be very aggressive and invasive with poor patient prognosis. However, purely glycolytic cancer cells devoid of mitochondrial DNA cannot form tumors unless they acquire mitochondrial DNA from adjacent cells. This perspective article will address this apparent conundrum of highly glycolytic cells and cover aspects of intercellular communication between tumor cells and cells of the microenvironment with particular emphasis on intercellular mitochondrial transfer