Climate dividend will pay off

Gordon Szymanski's August 29 letter used uninformed claims to reject the national carbon fee and dividend policy advocated in earlier letters by Deni Matthews.

Mr. Szymanski disparaged Regional Economic Models, Inc. (REMI) as a "pie-in-the-sky-firm." Surely the 145 listed conservative and liberal clients that have used REMI since 1980 would disagree with that label.

He then objected that REMI determined only, "what might, and I emphasize might, happen ..." Responsible people, businesses and governments do that all the time! What might happen drives decisions as routine as playing the lottery and buying insurance. What might happen is why governments support emergency and military forces that train on scenarios of mights.

His ad hominem attack questioned what planet Ms. Matthews lives on. Simply, the same planet where the popular Alaska Permanent Fund issues dividend checks to its state's residents on a regular basis. This is also the same continent of the same planet where British Columbia implemented a revenue-neutral carbon tax in 2008.

The policy advocated by Ms. Matthews, me and many others recognizes that corporations paying the fees will pass those costs onto us (advocates of carbon fees not magically exempted). Thus, standing firm on the dividend being returned to households is vital.

Additionally, former Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson has stated that failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will result in greater increases in costs and debt. Why, then, reflexively reject the only program that offers help (via the dividend)?

All the sciences attribute measured changes in our air and water to unnaturally high levels of greenhouse gases released at a rate that has no precedent in human history. We have the power to change that. The question is: do we have the heart?

Julie Nowak

Grayslake