Letters to the editor Aug. 1

Carbon pricing worth supporting

Thank you for publishing the Houston Chronicle’s editorial “Following the EU’s lead with a carbon tax” on July 26. I agree, America is behind. We risk losing our international competitiveness. Let’s get back in the game with carbon pricing and a carbon border adjustment mechanism.

Each day our local news here in Montana is filled with stories about wildfires, bad air, drought, heat waves, and imperiled fisheries, all made worse by our warming climate caused by fossil fuel emissions. A big opportunity for a clean energy future recently came up but we must act fast.

The budget reconciliation process has kicked off in Congress with a goal to halve emissions within 10 years. To reach that target the budget bill must include the essential tool most effective in reducing emissions: A price on carbon.

Today’s new generation of carbon pricing protects American families economically by giving emissions fees from fossil fuel producers back to households, aka carbon cash back.

Another important component of a carbon price which protects American businesses is a carbon border adjustment mechanism. This applies to imports from nations that do not have an equivalent carbon price. The current budget proposal includes a carbon border tax. But, to comply with World Trade Organization rules, the U.S. CBAM will likely require a domestic carbon price.

Importantly, carbon cash back does not increase the budget – it pays for itself.

Take action: ask Senator Tester to put carbon pricing in the reconciliation bill.

Let’s do this!

—Robin Paone, Whitefish

Carbon tax a bad idea

I read with interest the editorial about a carbon tax. My comment is simply: A really bad idea.

These human-caused climate change folks have really gone off the deep end. I will just quote from this piece the one telling falsehood about the whole issue: “... moving the world toward net-zero emissions by 2050.” This sentence was truly a laughing-out-loud moment for me.

Don’t these misguided zealots realize that the natural Earth itself, via the oceans, volcanic activity, forest fires, degradation of plants, etc., is responsible for over 95% of all CO2 in our atmosphere? Humans and their burning of their fossil fuels is just a tiny microfraction of this carbon dioxide load.

For that above quoted statement to be true, we’d literally have to dry up all the oceans, totally stop forest fires, remove all vegetation from the planet, and silence all the volcanic activity on Earth.

Now that’s doable, right?

—Reed L Yeater, Polson