In his 26 years at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Rowe can’t remember a time when his department has chosen a similar course toward group activism.

“Have we ever done anything like this? Not that I can think of.”

It’s been two weeks since he and four other NU faculty members from climate and climate-related ranks offered their shared view.

“The time for debate is over,” they said. “The time for action is here.”

In the next few decades, they warned, average temperatures in Nebraska will rise by 4 to 10 degrees. Because of diminished snowpack in the Rocky Mountains, flows in the Platte River will drop and Lake McConaughy could become “a ditch in midsummer.”

“Climate change is real, and human activities have a profound effect on the way in which it is occurring,” they asserted in endorsing a lengthier document released in August by the American Meteorological Society.