SHIPPENSBURG, Pa. — The Pennsylvania Climate Leadership Academy is a newly formed organization that aims to educate and train policy makers, infrastructure executives, and business leaders on climate change in the state. The academy was formed this year by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in partnership with the Association of Climate Change Officers.
Dr. Joseph Zume, a geosciences professor at Shippensburg University, was recently selected to serve on the advisory board with other leaders from across PA. Zume teaches courses in geography and hydrology. He also studies how water tables and other hydrological features will change in our changing climate.
Zume tells FOX43 that when it comes to creating climate awareness and change, there is no better place to start than with those managing our government and infrastructure.
“The impacts of climate change are real. We’re beginning to see more intense storms, seeing flooding like what happened in Europe recently… the reality is there," Zume tells FOX43. "What we need is for everybody to build that climate change or that climate literacy, and that is what the Climate Leadership Academy is about.”
Zume hopes that this knowledge shared with policy makers and leaders can then be shared and passed down to the household level across our communities.
The PA Climate Leadership Academy currently offers a short course on climate literacy and plans to have more programs and activities in the future.
The academy also has a library of educational videos and resources related to climate change and infrastructure in PA.
Education about climate change is important as we are already feeling the effects of a warmer Earth here in Pennsylvania.
Zume points out the flooding rains and severe weather we've recently seen in South Central PA. "And so we're beginning to see things like this and it relates directly to the warming climate, which it is going to really increase the kinds of storms that we get here. And impacts on agriculture, and impacts on sea levels, and all of that."