MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • November 22, 2020
A post-pandemic federal stimulus package could be just the ticket for the other crisis upon us, climate change, if the funds go toward quickly cutting CO2 emissions. What if, instead of continuing tax breaks for coal, oil and gas industries, we priced them out of the energy market with a steadily rising pollution tax? We’d be cutting the trillion pounds of U.S. pollution per month from burning all that fossil fuel. Such a scheme has been proposed by Reagan-era Republicans. It’s called “national carbon fee and dividend,” or, more colloquially, “cashback carbon pricing,” because all of us receive an equal cashback share of that dividend – a monthly climate security check. We’d all be better off with cleaner air, and freedom to choose – and lower CO2, without which our efforts are for nought. ~ Peter Garrett, Winslow