

Guest column: Time to address global warming

8:27 AM, Feb. 25, 2013  |  Comments
Doug BellCommunity Press guest columnist
Doug BellCommunity Press guest columnist

Drought and fires in 2011 cost Texas over $5.5 billion. In 1991, a drought-induced fire in Oakland cost the city $1.5 billion.

The drought of 2012 cost our national economy between $75 billion and $150 billion. This is the cost of global warming. It's just beginning and it will get worse.

The debate over the reality of global warming is over. Since 1991, 13,950 peer-reviewed climate articles have been written, of which only 24 rejected global warming. The only remaining debate is a fake one, manufactured by the oil and coal industries.

Even the premier climate skeptic Richard Muller, funded by the Koch brothers, now agrees that global warming is real and man-made.

It's time for solutions. The best overall plan is to enact a revenue-neutral carbon fee. This would be assessed on each ton of carbon whenever fossil fuels are drilled, mined or imported. For example, the fee would be assessed on an oil company when it produces enough oil that when burned, would create a ton of carbon dioxide.

This would make coal, oil, and natural gas slightly more expensive. The fee would then be offset, and made revenue-neutral, by returning the revenue to taxpayers. This offset could be achieved using any of a variety of methods, e.g. by reducing other taxes or with a rebate. By returning the fee revenue to taxpayers, the cost to our overall economy would be zero.

Enacting a revenue-neutral carbon fee would help America move to a clean economy, one where we pollute less, waste less and use more clean renewable energy. It would also create millions of new jobs throughout America.

One argument against this that you may hear is that "cheap" coal, oil, and natural gas are good for the economy. Actually, they aren't cheap at all, even if one ignores the onrushing costs of global warming.

Other costs of their pollution are asthma, heart attacks, strokes, several types of cancer, and abnormal brain development in fetuses and breast-feeding babies. All of that is far more costly than any carbon fee.

We have a moral responsibility to future generations, an obligation to pass on to them the same life our parents gave to us. A revenue-neutral carbon-fee is the best way to fulfill our obligation.

Doug Bell is a resident of Kenwood and a volunteer with several environmental organizations.

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