CIN

Doug Bell is the group leaderfor the Cincinnati Chapterof Citizens Climate Lobby.

Like a drumbeat, proof that Earth’s climate is changing continues to sound. The decade from 2001 to 2010 was the hottest decade ever. In 2013, there were a record-setting 41 weather-related disasters that did more than a billion dollars in damage. January was the 347th consecutive month with above-average temperatures compared with the 20th century average. There has been a 300 percent rise in annual flood disasters since 1977. Glacier National Park only has 22 of 150 glaciers still remaining.

This past September, after several years of work, over 800 scientists from around the world produced the new IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report, its fifth such report. They agree that it is now considered even more certain that burning fossil fuels is the primary cause of the climate change that we are all now experiencing.

Here is a list of other reputable organizations that believe in global warming: American Meteorological Society, American Medical Association, U.S. National Academy of Sciences, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA, U.S. Department of Defense, American Geophysical Union and the National Association of Geoscience Teachers. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists is divided.

There may be a handful of scientists who disagree, and these few are eagerly circulated by deniers, but the consensus is still overwhelming. Bill Kaysing is a denier who believes that the 1968 moon landing was faked. But should he be a part of any serious discussion?

Consensus is growing in the American public as well. A recent poll by the Yale Project found that 83 percent of Americans believe the U.S. should make an effort to reduce global warming, even if those efforts have economic costs. This included 52 percent of Republicans who were polled.

There is a solution, and better yet, it has zero net economic costs. It is also free-market, negating the need for EPA regulations on carbon. This solution is also supported by many conservatives, including George Schultz, secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan; Gregory Mankiw, senior economic adviser to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign; Art Laffer, architect of Reagan’s economic plan; and Kevin Hassett, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. It is a revenue-neutral carbon fee. The fee would be offset, and made revenue-neutral, by returning the revenue to taxpayers as a rebate check.

There would be no net-increase in government revenue. For example, the fee would be assessed on an oil company when it produces enough oil that, when burned, would create a ton of carbon dioxide. This would make coal, oil and natural gas slightly more expensive and incentivize a reduction in their use.

With a carbon fee, there are no government regulations mandating which energy sources we should use. By being a free market mechanism, it allows each person or company to decide which energy source works best for them, while making carbon emissions part of that decision. Will it be coal, oil, natural gas, solar, wind, and will they install energy efficiency measures? It’s totally up to them.

How much will this cost you? Maybe nothing, and in fact, you may come out ahead. Under this plan, 66 percent percent of all households would break even or receive more in their rebate check than they paid for the increased cost of energy produced from fossil fuels.

Still not sure? Let me try this. Many of us buy car insurance, wear a seat belt and install smoke detectors. Why? Just in case something unfortunate happens, even if we’re not 100 percent convinced that it will, we take action in order to avoid the potentially serious consequences of it occurring. When the cost of action is small, and the cost of inaction could be huge, the responsible thing to do is to take action. The same is true with climate change. According to a study performed at Columbia University, since 1991 13,950 peer-reviewed climate articles have been written, of which only 24 rejected global warming.

If 98 percent of the world’s doctors were certain that I was ill, I’d start looking for a cure. ■