Can the Denver City Council clear the air?
Your editorial would have better served our city had it been titled “Denver is not ready for global warming.”
We cannot continue to treat climate change as a problem that can be addressed at our leisure. Denver’s population growth neutralizes the present slow pace of our conversion from fossil fuels to renewable resources. Nor can we rely on national policy, which is currently unable even to acknowledge the undeniable science on the dangers of our reliance on fossil fuels.
Resilient Denver is circulating a petition that includes a provision to tax residential use of electric power and natural gas; the measures presently under consideration by City Council include some of the provisions of that proposal.
The proposed bills provide for concrete steps and contributions by us, as energy users, to address those aspects of this global crisis that are within our grasp. It is the responsibility of communities of caring people to pool resources through public policy to meet common needs. This is such an instance if ever there was one.
Jolon Clark’s proposal of a carbon tax is a local solution for a global problem. Reducing Denver’s carbon footprint wouldn’t hurt, but the changes and the pain of those changes must be globally shared.
America’s withdrawal from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change feels wrongheaded. America should be leading the way; the climate is warming and denial will not stop melting glaciers or rising sea level.
A better solution is for the U.S. House and Senate to pass the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act. The bill would place a fee on coal, oil and natural gas and return collected monies to U.S. citizens. These greenhouse gas-producing energy sources become more expensive (thus less used), but out-ofpocket dollars are neutralized by the dividend.
While I understand that any tax rendered to utilities customers must be well thought out, I argue that we’ve had decades to figure this out. I vividly recall in 1975, driving with my future wife east on Colfax to downtown Denver the day after Thanksgiving, and seeing a brown cloud that rivaled something out of “Apocalypse Now.”
Today, we have an opportunity for change. Maintaining public trust is crucial; however, let’s not sweat the details. Get the tax on the ballot, under the terms that the taxing authorities have six months, a year (pick something) to figure out the spending. Otherwise, all the money goes back.
Let’s not wait another 45 years.