Thanks to the writer of the letter “Faulty logic in climate change argument” (Addison Independent, June 17), which provided a science-based refutation of a climate change denier letter. However, we need to stop spending our time defending climate science and focus on solutions to the climate crisis.
(To that end, it would be great if this paper would stop printing demonstrable false climate denial letters. I doubt very much if you’d publish letters from anti-vaxers).
We now have a 38-page, detailed version of the Green New Deal’s energy plan, which is called The Evergreen Economy Plan (vox.com). It shows that a rapid national transition to clean energy can more than pay for itself. It would create over 8 million high-wage, local, permanent green jobs with two-thirds of the plan being paid for by private industry.
The rest could come from the fossil fuel megacorporations that knowingly created the climate crisis and clandestinely spent over $2 billion over two decades spreading lies about it (Scientific American, Fortune, ucsusa.org, insideclimatenews.org). Their actions have cost Americans over $1.6 trillion in climate disasters (NASA/NOAA).
There’s a bill in Congress that can make the fossil fuel industry pay for their pollution: H.R. 763 “Carbon Dividends.” A Congressional Budget Office scoring shows it would more than pay for the remaining third of the Evergreen plan. Canada’s been doing this successfully for a decade (The Guardian).
Green New Deal-scale emissions cuts now can prevent “catastrophic” climate change that would cause “global economic collapse” followed by “societal collapse” (National Academy of Sciences). The cost to the U.S. economy would be over $160 trillion (“Forbes,” April 2019).
Lynn Goldfarb
Lancaster, Pa.