Photo by Chuck Zovko
Some 33 faculty members from three colleges in Lancaster County have sent a letter to Gov. Tom Wolf and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that stresses the validity of climate change and endorses President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan to cut carbon pollution at coal-fired power plants.
The 33 from Franklin & Marshall College, Elizabethtown College and Millersville University also urged the EPA to adopt strong rules to capture methane pollution from oil and gas drilling, which they said was quickly becoming a major driver for climate change.
“Without a planet that can sustain us, nothing else matters,” said Sarah Dawson, director of the Wohlsen Center for Sustainable Environment at F&M.
The 33 were among more than 400 professors, researchers and lecturers from 29 academic institutions in Pennsylvania that sent the letter to Wolf and EPA.
The letter campaign was organized by the PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center, a statewide environmental advocacy group, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, a national environmental group.
The campaign yielded signatures from 29 F&M faculty members, three from Elizabethtown College and one from Millersville University. There were no signatures from Lancaster Bible College.
“It is becoming more and more apparent that urgent action on global warming is critical if we are going to secure a safer future for our children. As academics and experts in our fields, we support the EPA and President Obama’s plan to curb global warming pollution,” the letter says.
“Over the last 60 years, Pennsylvania has seen a 52-percent increase in extreme downpours, leading to more flooding that devastates communities and causes hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. At the same time, hotter summer days have led to increased smog, making it more dangerous for the 276,961 children suffering from asthma to step outside. Right now, Pennsylvania is already working to reduce carbon pollution by expanding wind and solar power, and investing in energy efficiency nationwide.”
The local professors signing the letter come from a variety of disciplines, including religion, geosciences, economics, history and ecology.