Climate investments make economic sense

I'm a retired environmental science teacher from Stevenson High School. When I decided to retire from teaching, I looked for a way to bring new value to my community, and that's how I ended up as a consultant building large-scale solar installations in Illinois.

I urge Congress to pass the bold climate investments within the Build Back Better Act now. I've always been a math and science guy, and in this case the economics just make sense.

Sometimes a dollar spent today saves $4 dollars down the road. And that is what this legislation will do. We must spend now on clean energy and that investment will save trillions of dollars in taxable money in the future.

Take two of the schools in Libertyville that I helped go solar, for example. The school district will save about $100,000 per year over the 30-year life span of the system. The savings add up to $3 million that the school district can put to good use.

Clean energy is cheap energy. Abundant, cleap energy has been a key to American economic success, but we must transition to what are now the cheapest forms of energy - hydroelectric, wind and solar power.

Finally, if we invest boldly today we can avoid the future devastating costs of climate change.

Our building of a clean energy economy here will allow us to develop new products that can be exported to help other countries. This is a "Sputnik" moment, America can rise to the occasion again and seize the economic opportunity that comes with bold climate investments.

Dave Wilms

Libertyville