Over a hundred concerned citizens plotted out sea level rise on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art September 21, with each step symbolizing a centimeter in sea level rise since 1900.

Sea level has risen 20 centimeters since 1900 and conservative estimates project that sea levels with rise at least 52 centimeters by 2100. Ten square kilometers of Philadelphia are only a meter above sea level and are in danger of being underwater in the next century.

Participants charged up the steps before calling Senators from the Clean Air Council’s mobile office, urging them to support the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to limit carbon dioxide from new power plants announced September 20.

Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey has authored legislation that would prevent the EPA from standardizing carbon dioxide emissions and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey is still reviewing the rule, saying "there's a way to strike that balance without costing Pennsylvania jobs."

The EPA has proposed a standard limiting carbon dioxide pollution from new power plants. New coal plants will emit no more than 1,100 tons per megawatt hour and new natural gas plants will emit no more than 1,000 or 1,100 tons per mWh, depending on size.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that regulating carbon dioxide was within the bounds of the Clean Air Act and since the rule was initially proposed in 2012 the EPA has received 3.2 million comments in support of limiting carbon dioxide pollution.

“We’ve surpassed 400 million parts per million of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. That’s the highest level we’ve seen in 3 million years and it is obvious that it’s not the result of natural forces. We’ve changed the climate for the worse and this is a big step to  fixing that,” says Joseph O. Minott, Esq. Executive Director of Clean Air Council.

Head EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy testified last Wednesday to the House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce that carbon capture technology for new power plants is “technically feasible and it is available today.”

Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee skipped the House Forum on the Impacts of Climate Change where victims of hurricanes, droughts and wildfires spoke to the need to do something about climate change. In a recent report, The American Meteorological Society found that 35 percent of the extreme weather between March and May of 2012 can be attributed to greenhouse gas emissions and that the East Coast is now twice as likely to suffer “Superstorm Sandy” caliber floods than it was in 1950.

Conservative congressmen have been trying to prohibit the EPA from taking into account the social cost of carbon dioxide pollution by amending bipartisan legislation like the Shaheen Portman Energy Efficiency Bill. The bill would have funded job training in renewable energy and retrofitting existing structures, but is now stalled in Congress.

9/30/2013