Last week, U.S. Rep. Greg Walden voted for a House resolution condemning any carbon tax as a way to reduce greenhouse gasses from burning fossil fuels (97 percent of Republicans voted for it as well, and 98 percent of Democrats voted against it). Republican concerns were that, as the Koch brothers said in their endorsement of the measure, “a carbon tax would hurt the very people it’s trying to protect… we need to continue the pro-growth economic agenda to keep its momentum at full speed.”
This all comes on the heels of a comprehensive study showing that a carbon tax, whose revenues are returned to taxpayers either via rebate checks or by offsetting taxes, would have a negligible impact on the economy! Unchecked global warming, on the other hand will have a catastrophic effect, and so I’m wondering how we will be able to to address this issue once the economy is not going full speed? Just pay later?
That was last week. This week global heat is setting fires from Japan to Sweden, Oman to Texas, and Oregon as well. In the south-central U.S., 35 million people are living under excessive heat warnings issued by the National Weather Service and the electrical grid is maxed out. What happens if it fails?
With global warming we can expect dramatic changes in weather with extreme cold in some places, excess heat and drought in others, or rain and flooding elsewhere. This can lead to mass migration of people, famine, war, and epidemics and it is the expectation that children living today will see such events if the accumulation of greenhouse gasses is not checked.
The argument about what causes global warming is over. The issue is now what to do about it. We need leadership from our representatives to combat this, an issue which is to become the most important one in our lifetimes. It’s no comfort that Walden votes against the environment 91 percent of the time (according to the League of Conservation Voters) and sides with the oil and gas industry 90 percent of the time (according to the American Energy Alliance).
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