Thank you, Durango Herald, for your editorial Aug. 21, “
You are now comfortably acknowledging the cause is human emissions of carbon in the atmosphere. Of course, there are natural occurrences of carbon emitting into the atmosphere, as many in the oil and gas extraction industry remind us, but the rising concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane are primarily caused by burning fossil fuels.
France made a critical mistake in the design of its carbon tax by structuring the policy in ways that disproportionately impacted the working class.
A bill in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act, offers a better solution.
This legislation, if enacted, will accomplish so much to curb carbon emissions and actually benefit middle- and lower-income citizens. The fee would be collected at the point of extraction in ratio to the measured carbon emission into the atmosphere, but the revenue would be redistributed to the American public in equal allotments; 3,500 economists in our country support this legislation.
Let’s put the partisan politics aside and get our members of Congress to pass this. It might be too late for the glaciers, but hopefully, not too late for humans.
Louise van Vonno
Durango
