Schlesinger and Pimm Join National Coalition Urging Senators to Support the Climate Stewardship Act

Monday, May 24, 2004/DURHAM, N.C. – Nicholas School faculty members Stuart L. Pimm and William H. Schlesinger have joined a coalition of 31 scientists and religious leaders urging U.S. Senators to give serious consideration to the Climate Stewardship Act when it is debated in the Senate in coming months.

Co-sponsored by Senators John McCain of Arizona and Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, the Act is a moderate, bipartisan bill intended to enact provisions to curtail greenhouse gas emissions and restore momentum for legislative action on global climate change.

To signal their support of the Act, Pimm, Schlesinger and 29 other leaders in science and religion have signed a letter issued by the National Religious Partnership for the Environment and delivered to all 100 U.S. Senators. The letter, “Earth Climate Embraces Us All: A Plea from Religion and Science for Action on Global Climate Change,” has been posted online at www.nrpe.org.

Pimm is Doris Duke Professor of Conservation Ecology. Schlesinger is James B. Duke Professor of Biogeochemistry and dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences.

“The purpose of the letter is to stress the moral imperative of addressing climate change,” Schlesinger said. “By having scientists join with leaders of our nation’s major religious denominations, we signify that all sectors of society view prudent climate stewardship as a common good.”

Schlesinger and Pimm’s co-signers include two Nobel Prize laureates – Mario Molina of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and F. Sherwood Rowland of the University of California at Irvine.

Other signers include Alan Leshner, chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and publisher of Science; Thomas Eisner, director of the Institute for Research in Chemical Ecology at Cornell University; Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America; Rev. Robert Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches USA; and Peter Raven, Engelmann Professor of Botany at Washington University in St. Louis, and president of Sigma Xi.

Media contact: Tim Lucas, 919/613-8084 or tdlucas@duke.edu