PennFuture has a terrific set of volunteers. Tom Mullaney, who lives in my neck of the woods (just outside of Philadelphia), has been helping us out for about six months now and he's a delight to work with. Tom is so committed to the effort to slow climate change that he's making the round trip to Pittsburgh on July 31 so that he can testify in person at the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) hearing on its long-overdue proposal to limit carbon pollution from dirty power plants. Tom shared his testimony with me earlier this week, and it really touched me. He has kindly agreed to share his testimony here. Thanks, Tom!
My name is Tom Mullaney and I am a resident of Glenside, Pennsylvania. I am a high school history teacher.
I am fully supportive of the EPA's proposed standard. It should be implemented promptly and without being weakened in any way.
As a history teacher, I hope that as I approach retirement in the early 2040s, I will teach my students about a time when Americans were concerned about carbon emissions in the atmosphere. I want to explain to my students that the problem is considered history and not a crisis in their lives because, in 2014, our government took action resulting in reduced carbon in the atmosphere and increased willingness of other countries to follow this example.
I am looking forward to my lesson on how the United States got carbon emissions under control. As a history teacher, I look back as well. To understand why we are here today, we need to know the EPA has the authority, granted by a bipartisan vote of Congress, signed into law by a Republican president, and confirmed by Supreme Court decision written by conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, to set standards for industrial carbon pollution from power plants.
Setting reasonable carbon pollution standards for power plants will cut the primary driver of climate change. Carbon dioxide traps heat. That is a scientific fact. Since the dawn of the industrial age, we have increased carbon emissions, something that has been irrefutably measured and documented. In that time, temperatures have consistently risen, so much so that, globally, we’ve now had 351 consecutive months above the long-term average. That means a 29-year-old has never lived through a “cooler than normal” month. This fuels extreme weather such as Superstorm Sandy, which closed my school for three days in October 2012.
When southeastern Pennsylvania students miss three days of school because of inclement weather in October, the problem is not theoretical. It is real and already impacting our daily lives.
Please take action by implementing the proposed standard. I want my students in the 2040s to know about this problem because I teach it to them, not because they experience it. Thank you.
Joy Bergey is PennFuture's federal policy director and is based in Philadelphia. You'll find her in Pittsburgh on July 31 and August 1 for the EPA hearings.
