Last month, 177 faculty and staff from across the University of Texas system wrote Chancellor William McRaven urging him to reduce the climate-damaging methane pollution leaking from oil and gas facilities on land managed by the UT System. The letter was followed by a student government resolution making the same request.

While many of us have seen the oil rig on the UT campus — on the corner of MLK and Trinity streets — most in our community know little about UT’s massive, polluting oil and gas operations in West Texas.

Hundreds of companies lease land from UT to drill for oil and gas. Managed by University Lands (UL), these 2 million acres of UT lands are home to more than 9,000 oil and gas wells.

This land and the oil and gas that’s extracted from it generates millions of dollars of revenue for the University of Texas and A&M Systems. But in addition to revenue, oil and gas production also produces significant emissions of a powerful climate pollutant: methane.

RELATED: Activists, professors urge UT to cut methane emissions on oil lands.

Invisible and odorless, methane is 80 times more powerful a heat trapper than carbon dioxide and is responsible for 25 percent of current global warming. Using EPA data, Environment Texas estimated that methane emissions on UT lands have nearly doubled and that between 2009 and 2014, while oil and gas produced the equivalent of 11.7 million tons of climate pollution. In one year, the methane from UL oil and gas operations inflicts the same short-term climate impact as 2.5 million cars or 3.4 coal-fired power plants.

University Lands takes issue with these calculations, suggesting they have "correct, accurate statistics" that are "specific" to their lands. However, much of the numbers they cite include similar extrapolations and assumptions as the estimate they criticize. They rely on industry-reported emission data known by researchers as providing an incomplete picture. UL’s data presentation and message on methane emissions often parrots that of industry — and frankly, it does not reflect an approach worthy of a world-class, truth seeking research institution.

While University Lands has a small handful of long-standing policies in place that might help reduce methane emissions — for example, their requirement that operators pay royalties on gas burned through flares — they are far from adopting the most recent best practices in this area. They refuse to require operators on their land to replace high-leak equipment with new, lower leaking retrofits — or carry out regular leak detection and repair programs on older wells and facilities. They won’t even set a goal or target for reducing methane emissions.

We’re happy to admit that UL does many things right. We believe that if oil and gas companies were regularly leaking oil onto their land, UL’s action would be swift and comprehensive. But oil and gas companies on UL land are regularly leaking methane into our atmosphere and warming the planet. Their response, so far, has been lacking.

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There is a real opportunity for University Lands to show leadership in Texas on this issue. That’s why we’re calling on UT and University Lands to convene a Methane Task Force composed of UT and Texas A&M experts.

Our request is simple: As a leader on many climate change issues and a steward of our public land, UT should reduce the amount of methane leaking from the wells on its land. Many departments at UT are working on exciting and promising technologies and policies that will help us reduce climate emissions.

Though UT spends a fair amount of time bragging about its climate change efforts and experts, the methane emissions on its land undermines the university’s commitment to sustainability. In other words, UT should be part of the climate change solution rather than exacerbating the problem.