Slap a fee on fossil fuels and the world’s climate will improve immediately

The bipartisan Energy Innovation Act puts a price on carbon. By imposing a rising fee, it would reduce CO2 emissions by 40% in just 12 years.  

One of my favorite childhood stories was of the Dutch boy who saved his community by standing steadfastly all night long with his finger plugged in a leaking dike. A Sun-Times editorial on Aug. 19 points to two new leaks in the national dike protecting our climate.

Fortunately, we don’t have to stand all night trying to plug the dike, waiting for help. We already have the analysis of climate scientists that greenhouse gas emissions are at the core of the climate crisis. We also have their recommendation that a national price on carbon could play a critical role in transitioning our economy to clean energy. We can act now.

The bipartisan Energy Innovation Act puts a price on carbon. By imposing a rising fee on fossil fuels, it would reduce CO2 emissions by 40% in just 12 years.

While the bill won’t plug all the leaks in our efforts to mitigate climate change, it would place such efforts on a more solid foundation. Congressional legislation is more difficult to gore than presidential executive orders. My representative in Congress, Jan Schakowsky, is a cosponsor of this bill. Is your representative a cosponsor?

Laura Winston, Evanston

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People like Seth Whitehead, executive director of the Illinois Petroleum Resources Board, who recently wrote that there’s no climate benefit to keeping Obama-era rules on curbing methane emissions, don’t get it.

The Earth is our only home. Mars is pure delusion. Our use of fossil fuels has changed the climate and thus changed all weather patterns. Life as we’ve known it has changed for the long term. So the argument should be that we need to limit the emissions of any additional noncondensing greenhouse gases, including that 1.2% Seth considers irrelevant, not ignore them to save a few jobs. Or we will suffer the consequences.

People need to understand that global warming is but one of many problems that life on Earth faces due to human activity and our excessive population. Wildlife populations are in decline; we have been driving an extinction event that we will not survive, our own existence depending on the web of life.

Jeffery Biss, Elgin

Why 50 aldermen?

Can someone please tell me why the City of Chicago, with a land size of 227 square miles and a population of 2.7 million, needs 50 aldermen, who get paid $115,000 a year for what is supposed to be a part-time job? Houston, Texas, with a land size of 640 square miles and a population of 2.36 million, has only 16 city council members, and they are paid an average of $63,000.

What gives? Would 25 Chicago aldermen be enough? I say yes.

John Moravecek, Naperville