I started reading about global warming in the early 1990’s and it struck me as something that could actually happen in my lifetime.  Since then, I’ve studied global warming and climate change intensively and I have worked with climate scientists and even co-authored a peer-reviewed paper on climate change.  What I learned is that climate change is real, is happening now, and the impacts of climate change will intensify much sooner and will be much worse than most people believe.  I have also learned that there are a number of psychological barriers that prevent people from really believing in climate change and taking action.

The near-term (next few decades) impacts of climate change will be very unpleasant and costly.  The impacts and costs after mid-century will be totally unacceptable - a bust.  And yet, there is a simple and effective way to address the problem: put a price on carbon. 

While the defeated Federal “Cap and Trade” scheme was complex, there are much simpler and fairer ways to price carbon.  With the “Clean Energy Dividend” approach, an escalating fee is put on CO2 at the wellhead, mine, or port of entry.  The fee eventually rises enough to increase gasoline prices by $1 or so a gallon.  100% of all the money collected under this scheme is returned monthly to every citizen on a per-capita basis (with 1/2 shares for up to 2 kids).  Since the “80/20” rule generally applies to CO2 usage (20% of the people use 80% of the CO2), most citizens will make money on the scheme!  CO2 emissions will drop and low-carbon alternatives will flourish - creating an economic boom.  Since the government gets no revenues and does not pick winners or losers, even conservatives can get behind this approach.  In fact, in conservative Alaska, they have a similar system that provides a share of oil revenues to every citizen.