Pay now or later

Last week’s Gazette provided an interesting juxtaposition of ideas. Page 8A’s editorial by Gordon Forgey, “12 years left,” faced page 9A’s column, “Carbon Fee Hurts Business and Families,” by Don Brunell.

The editorial depicted accurately the latest UN report on the urgency of climate change. It also observed that this information was not really new, that the underlying science had been known since 1957. I’d like to correct that.

A century earlier, in August 1856, a scientist named Eunice Foote “in two brisk pages … anticipated the revolution in climate science.” She demonstrated the “effects...