With the World Health Organization announcing a global pandemic, people are urgently focused on the developing crisis, changing their habitual behaviors and accepting restrictions and inconveniences designed to “flatten the curve” concerning the rate of infection.
This COVID-19 epidemic is bad and may get much worse. But it will pass. It is not permanent.
With the majority of scientific evidence indicating a looming climate crisis caused by carbon emissions creating unprecedented planetary warming, people are largely complacent and are not changing their habitual behaviors, nor are they willing to accept restrictions and inconveniences designed to “flatten the curve” with regard to the rate of increase in mean global temperature.
This climate crisis is bad, and will get much worse. It will not pass.
Once the earth warms beyond an increase of around 2 degrees Celsius, it will irreversibly pass a tipping point, and our planet will face a permanently hotter, less inhabitable future.
Let’s act while there is still time. HB 763, the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act, seeks to price carbon emissions into every aspect of economic activity by placing a fee on the production of fossil fuels. The resulting billions of dollars of revenue would be shared equally by all Americans, offsetting the higher cost of energy and creating market based decision making that takes the cost of carbon emissions into account. The time is now to urge our members of Congress to support this vital legislation.
Simon Diggins, Salt Lake City