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Letter: Argument about climate change unsupported
“Not much human beings can do on climate change” (Dec. 3) is best summed up by an online comment: “A seventh-grade science lesson combined with some unsupported assertions.”
Every scientific body of national or international standing says burning fossil fuels is the cause of climate change and that phasing out fossil fuels is the solution. NASA’s website has a list of all 230 of them, like The National Academy of Sciences.
By transitioning to clean energy with a revenue-neutral carbon fee we can create 2.8 million U.S. jobs and increase our GDP $75-80 billion annually. That’s not just economic theory, it’s based on British Columbia’s experience with such a fee since 2007.
By returning the money from an annually-increasing fee on all fossil fuels directly to the public in equal monthly checks, they’ve grown their economy faster than any other Canadian province, while lowering taxes and energy bills (The Economist).
This program has a whopping 83% public approval rating there (World Bank). As the fee makes oil, natural gas and coal steadily more expensive than clean energy, people use their monthly carbon rebate checks to switch to renewable energy and make money doing it (Citizens Climate Lobby website).
No government regulations or expenditures. The same fee on imports from countries which have higher emissions than ours (called a “border tariff”) will immediately make emissions cuts China’s top priority. Rebating that import fee to American consumers will give people the money to afford U.S. products again as import rise in price, bringing back our manufacturing jobs.
Besides these enormous economic benefits, clean energy will also reduce the over 13,000 annual American deaths caused by carbon pollution (American Lung Association) and the over $866.5 billion Americans pay annually for medical treatment of carbon-caused illnesses (Forbes).