Feb 9, 2018 2 min read

We need clean energy, yes, but there’s a better, faster way to get it globally than the plan supported in a Jan 28 letter to the editor in the Observer-Reporter.

We can tax fossil fuels out of existence and give all that tax money to the taxpayers, increasing our GDP over $75 billion annually, and creating over 5 million good-paying, local, permanent (40-year) jobs. This policy has worked as promised in British Columbia for nearly a decade, lowering taxes and energy bills and creating the fastest-growing economy in Canada, according to the World Bank.

It’s called “carbon fee-and-dividend.” Under this plan, all corporations that rely on fossil fuels pay an annually increasing carbon pollution fee, and every taxpayer gets that tax money in equal dividend checks every month. Use that ever-increasing dividend to buy cheaper clean energy and, as solar and wind energy keep falling exponentially in price until they’re nearly free, you make more money every year.

More importantly, this policy can have a global impact, not only letting the U.S. be a model other nations can follow, but also having a global domino effect by using market forces to make other nations cut their emissions as much and as fast as we do.

That’s vital, because global warming is moving faster than clean energy installations.

We are facing catastrophic climate change, which will cause a global economic and societal collapse. We have only about a decade left to take the actions necessary.

Lynn Goldfarb

Lancaster