Eastern Adams County's Only Independent Voice Since 1887

A Carbon Fee and Dividend Solution for Safe Energy

The commentator in “Pity the Poor Streamers” (8/28/13), writes: “…we need renewable energy. But we also need oil, natural gas – and, yes, coal – if we are to meet future energy demands.”

“Streamers” refers to birds who are incinerated by super-heated air surrounding solar arrays in California-Nevada.

I love birds and hate for them to die like this. But, free-ranging domestic cats are estimated to kill 1.4 to 3.7 billion birds annually. And fossil fuels are responsible for far more bird fatalities than solar or wind.

Burning fossil fuels also contributes to four of the five leading causes of death in the United States: heart disease, cancer, stroke, and lung diseases. It puts children at risk of asthma and delayed mental development. Coal plants alone cause more than 13,000 U.S. deaths each year. The burning of fossil fuels costs $120 billion annually in mostly health-related damages. All these missed work days, hospital visits, and deaths not only cause suffering, but they handicap our economy, increase insurance premiums, and contribute to an unsustainable growth in health-care costs.

Moreover, use of fossil fuels for energy warms our atmosphere, which is causing devastating impacts.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change latest report finds:

The past 3 decades are the hottest since the start of the Industrial Revolution in 1850.

In the past two decades, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have steadily melted, and glaciers are shrinking across the world.

The concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has increased to levels unprecedented in the last 800,000 years.

There’s a limit to the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) we can safely emit. At current rates, we’ll exceed this limit by 2040.

While the rate of surface warming has slowed over the past 15 years, this is not a long-term trend, because the heat is accumulating in the ocean where it contributes to sea level rise.

Thomas Stocker, IPCC report co-lead says, “That doesn’t mean that the ocean saves us from global warming. It means that there would be much more powerful (shorter-term) global warming if it wasn’t for the ocean.”

So what can we do about it? President Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of State, George Shultz, who is on the Advisory Board of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) supports CCL’s Carbon Fee and Dividend (CFD) legislative proposal as the best way to transition off of fossil fuels and on to a carbon-free energy economy.

He says we need it as an insurance policy. “Climate change is a major problem. There are a lot of people who are skeptical … at least maybe in the back of your mind you might concede, maybe you’re wrong. …we have a lot of scientific data. I think it’s pretty convincing that we have a genuine big-time problem. … . This is a matter of observation. A new ocean is being created . How is that possible? It’s only possible because it’s getting warmer.”

Along with Nobel laureate Gary Becker, Mr. Shultz co-authored Why We Support a Revenue-Neutral Carbon Tax.

CCL just released a study that shows that the CFD approach will create millions of jobs, save hundreds of thousands of lives, grow our economy, protect family budgets, and reduce U.S. carbon emissions by 50 percent in just 20 years.

The fee is put on carbon-based fuels at the source: coal mine, gas/oil well, port of entry. It starts at $15/ton of CO2 and increases steadily over time at $10/ton/year. All of the revenues collected go right back to American households as a monthly dividend check. Not one dime to the government. (Mr. Shultz reminds us that it’s not a tax if the government doesn’t keep the money). No subsidies are paid to fossil fuel companies or any other energy industry, thus leveling the playing field and spurring innovation. Border tax adjustments with import fees on products imported from countries without a carbon fee, along with rebates to US industries exporting to those countries will create a fair competitive environment for exporters and motivate other countries to adopt a similar policy. No new bureaucracy is created. This approach also avoids government regulations.

The Solutions Project shows that we can ultimately meet future energy demands without fossil fuels. We can “get there” from here, using the CFD approach to transition all of us to carbon-fee energy sources, and in Ritzville, we can see the future already at our doorstep with the Tesla electric charging stations!

 

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