Wants carbon pricing

In “All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten,” Robert Fulghum stated he learned, “clean up your own mess.” The fossil fuel industry has not learned this lesson.

A price on carbon emissions would go a long way toward encouraging this industry to ‘clean up their own mess’ by developing innovative technologies.

The U.S. House just passed its version of the Build Back Better Act that contains historic levels of climate investment. Although the bill contains no provision to price carbon, this option is still being considered for the Senate version. Despite fear in the U.S. that pricing carbon may increase inflation, Canada and Europe have found that carbon fees have had the opposite effect.

Well-designed carbon pricing legislation like the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (EICDA) includes a dividend returned to American households to compensate for any resulting rise in costs.

In this time of perceived cultural divides between rural and urban, left and right, the urgency to address climate change provides a common meeting ground.

An example is the inspiring, Emmy-nominated film “Other Side of the Hill.” It documents how industry and environmentalists from communities in rural eastern Oregon found common ground on climate action.

From innovative timber operations in Wallowa County to large-scale solar in Lakeview, communities changed from “extractive economies” to highly profitable “stewardship economies,” illustrating perfect examples of how to “clean up our own messes” while simultaneously creating thriving economies.

Ask your senators to support carbon pricing to encourage such innovative thinking.

Katherine Dawes

Moscow, Idaho