Dear Editor:

The unprecedented heat and wildfire smoke this year has made it clear-the climate crisis has arrived and is changing our lives. To ensure that we have a sustainable economy and biosphere for ourselves and for future generations, we need to act now.

Fortunately, we have the tools necessary to address the climate crisis. In addition to renewable energy, there are free market solutions to help harness the power of the economy to fight climate change. On September 25, 2023 representative Salud Carbajal announced plans to introduce The Energy and Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act. This bill would harness the power of the free market put a price on carbon pollution so that polluters like fossil fuel companies would be priced per ton for the carbon they emit. That money would NOT be a tax, and instead, would be used as dividends paid back to American citizens, and not the government, to spend however they please.

Our market is heavily distorted towards fossil fuels, with the International Monetary Fund estimating that, in 2022, the world subsidized the fossil fuel industry to the tune of seven trillion dollars. So, we aren’t allowing our markets to truly reflect what fossil fuels are costing us as a country and as a species. Carbon pricing has broad bipartisan support but has been subject to misinformation campaigns and smear campaigns from mainly the fossil fuel industry and their front groups, who fear being held accountable for the damage they are doing to our planet, all while they continue to reap record profits and leave communities and governments holding the bill for the damages done by climate change. They will doubtless attempt to claim this will “hurt the economy” and “raise energy prices for everyone” but nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is, we can no longer afford NOT to address climate change. I urge representative Chris Deluzio to immediately co-sponsor this bill and support its passage, one that Republicans and Democrats can get behind.

Ryan Rauch

Bridgeville, PA