Smart climate policy is available

As Earth Day has just passed, consider the role of hope and cynicism in discussing our most-pressing challenge, decarbonizing our economy.

Everyone supports "clean energy," but many cynically refuse to consider the exact thing we must do: restrict fossil fuel use. But we can do this.

Economists have studied revenue-neutral carbon taxes and found minimal impacts on GDP. Yes, coal miners and coal barons will need to find other jobs, just like the farriers and buggy makers of yore, but resisting this policy will be vastly more expensive, in all ways, than adopting it.

The Energy Innovation Act (H.R. 763), in Congress now, gives a strong price signal to incentivize decarbonization and innovation while also providing a monthly dividend that more than compensates low- and moderate-income families for rising prices. Let's stop saying, "Nothing can be done." Let's take a fresh look at smart climate policy.

Theresa Quain

Naperville