The University of Pennsylvania has created the position of Vice Provost for Climate Science to address “the existential challenge of climate change,” the school announced this week.
The “Vice Provost for Climate Science, Policy, and Action” is tasked with supporting Penn’s leadership in addressing the climate crisis, noted the attentive folks at The College Fix, citing the school’s campus newspaper.
The post also includes responsibilities such as “implementing the campus-wide Climate and Sustainability Action Plan, leading academic programs in climate science and policy and enhancing education and training focused on climate mitigation and adaptation,” according to The Daily Pennsylvanian.
“Every person at Penn and all that we do has some nexus to the existential challenge of climate change,” reads the university’s strategic framework in a section titled “Lead on great challenges of our time.”
“We must, in an all-in University effort, do more,” the framework states. “From leading energy science and policy across disciplines to designing and caring for the built environment, Penn will seek additional ways to support and recruit the best minds.”
The school also pledges to “fuel initiatives that advance understanding and promise solutions” and to “adopt institutional best practices for the sake of our future and our planet.”
Commenting on the importance of the new position, Penn’s interim President Larry Jameson declared that “climate change may just be the greatest challenge we all face.”
For his part, Senior Vice President for Strategic Initiatives David Asch said that the most tangible goal of the university’s fight against climate change is “to reduce the temperature of the planet and to protect the planet’s inhabitants and ecosystem while we get there.”
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