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WHEREAS, the decade from 2000 to 2010 was the warmest on record, and 2005 and 2010 tied for the hottest years on record; and,
WHEREAS, the current level of CO2 in the atmosphere is approximately 392 parts per million (ppm); and,
WHEREAS, one of the world's leading climate scientists, Dr. James Hansen, stated in 2008: "If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that one which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm"; and,
WHEREAS, according to the Global Humanitarian Forum, climate change is already responsible every year for some 300,000 deaths, 325 million people seriously affected, and economic losses worldwide of U.S. $125 billion; and,
WHEREAS, extreme weather events are striking with increased frequency, with deadly consequences for people and wildlife, in the United States alone:
· 2005 had the most hurricanes on record since 1851;
· Blizzards plagued the Northeast during the winter of 2011;
· Intense rainfall and snowmelt forced the Mississippi River to overflow its banks across the Midwest and South in summer 2011;
· The unprecedented 2011 Texas drought lead the U.S. Department of Agriculture to declare the entire state a natural disaster zone;
· Heat waves scorched the Midwest and East in summer 2011, with many cities hitting record-high temperatures and for example, Oklahoma on pace to break its record for days over 100 degrees; and,
WHEREAS, climate change is threatening food security as crop growth and yields diminish and droughts, floods, and changes in snowpack depth are disrupting water supplies; and,
WHEREAS, scientists have concluded that by 2100 as many as one in ten species may be on the verge of extinction due to climate change; and,
WHEREAS, the world's ice is rapidly melting, threatening water supplies, raising sea levels, and jeopardizing ice-dependent animals so severely that Arctic summer sea ice is half the area and thickness it was several decades ago; and,
WHEREAS, according to Scientific American, sea level is rising faster along the U.S. East Coast than it has for at least 2,000 years, and is accelerating in pace, threatening coastal wildlife and the 40 percent of the world's population that lives within 60 miles of the coast; and,
WHEREAS, for four decades, the Clean Air Act has protected the air we breathe through a proven, comprehensive, successful system of pollution control that saves lives and creates economic benefits exceeding its costs by many times; and,
WHEREAS, with the Clean Air Act, air quality in this country has improved significantly since 1970, despite major growth both in our economy and industrial production; and,
WHEREAS, between 1970 and 1990, the six main pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act -particulate matter and ground-level ozone (both of which contribute to smog and asthma), carbon monoxide, lead, sulfur and nitrogen oxides (the acid gases that cause acid rain) - were reduced by between 47 percent and 93 percent, and airborne lead was virtually eliminated; and,
WHEREAS, the Clean Air Act has produced economic benefits valued at $2 trillion or 30 times the cost of regulation; and,
WHEREAS, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts vs. EPA (2007) that greenhouse gases are "air pollutants" as defined by the Clean Air Act and the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate them;
WHEREAS, The City of Pittsburgh prides itself on being a leader in the fight against climate change and for clean air by passing the Clean Air Act of 2011, requiring the retrofitting of construction vehicles in the City of Pittsburgh.
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NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the climate change is not an abstract problem for the future or one that will only affect far distant places but rather climate change is happening now, we are causing it, and the longer we wait to act, the more we lose and the more difficult the problem will be to solve; and,
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Council of the City of Pittsburgh, on behalf of the residents of Pittsburgh, do hereby urge the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa P. Jackson, and President Barack Obama to move swiftly to fully employ and enforce the Clean Air Act to do our part to reduce carbon in our atmosphere to no more than 350 parts per million.