To the Editors:

Thank you for the full coverage you gave to the Environment Ohio report on Ohio’s gas-fired and coal power plants (“Report Lists Ohio as Top Polluter,” The Oberlin Review, Sept. 20, 2013). Also on Sept. 20, Gina McCarthy, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, announced the Obama administration’s aggressive plan to enact stronger regulations to limit carbon emissions for new power plants. The regulations would limit new gas-fired power plants to 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per megawatt-hour and new coal plants to 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide, a reduction of some 700 pounds per megawatt-hour for the average coal plant.

This is good news for reducing harmful greenhouse gases in the environment but does not address pollution from existing power plants. Enacting stricter regulations on all power plants is essential to protect our environment and health and reduce the impact that carbon emissions have on climate worldwide.

I urge all readers to learn more and take action. Volunteers and staff members of Environment Ohio will be on Tappan Square during the Oberlin Community and Culture Festival on Saturday, Sept. 28, dis- tributing literature and collecting signatures on a petition to EPA Ad- ministrator McCarthy.

There are countless books, websites, newspaper accounts and journal articles to inform one’s thinking on the impact of coal power plants on the climate and environment. This book is a good start: The Carbon Crunch: How We’re Getting Climate Change Wrong — and How to Fix It, by Dieter Helm (in the OC library and many OhioLINK libraries). I would be more than happy to help anyone seeking more information.

–Alison S. Ricker
Science librarian, Oberlin College