Re: "When will Trump catch up?" (Connection, July 20): Archimedes said, “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum to place it on, and I can move the world.” We have the lever and fulcrum that can save the world. We just need to start using it.
The Paris Climate Agreement was always going to be too little too late (IPCC). Fortunately, we have a much simpler, faster, more effective, proven, bi-partisan/conservative solution that will use market forces to create a global “domino” effect making other nations cut their emissions as much as we do. It will also jump-start a $50-trillion clean-energy industry (Bloomberg) while swiftly phasing out fossil fuels. It’s called “carbon fee-and-dividend.”
It works on the principle of self interest. It rewards consumer and taxpayers rather than punishing them. All fossil fuel corporations pay a carbon pollution fee which goes to every taxpayer in equal monthly “carbon dividend” checks.
The amount of those fees keeps going up every year and so do people’s “dividends.” As fossil fuels become increasingly more expensive, clean energy will continue to drop in price, especially as it scales up. Using your increasing “dividend” money to buy solar and wind power means you save more every year. That’s projected to increase U.S. GDP $75-80 billion annually (ClitizensClimateLobby.org).
This will create more than 5 million U.S. jobs (Stanford University’s solutionsproject.org).
CFD has worked in British Columbia for eight years, lowering taxes and energy bills, and creating the best economy of any Canadian province (The Economist). It has an 83 percent public approval rating there (World Bank).
It uses conservative economics: no government regulations, expansion or expenditures and it requires no international agreements.
We really can save the world while making the vast majority of Americans financially better off with this simple policy.
It’s genius.
Lynn Goldfarb
Lancaster, Pa.