Citizen's Climate Lobby of Rock County

  Natural Climate Cycles and Global Warming   The question often comes up whether the changes in climate of the last few decades are due to human caused ‘global warming’, or whether they are just part of nature taking its own course.  To help answer this, we need to understand natural climate change.  There are different kinds of climate cycles, with different causes.  The biggest cycles are driven by tilts in in the Earth’s rotation axis and interaction of Earth’s orbit with Jupiter and Saturn. If you want to know more, look up Milankovitch Cycles and dig in. These are the cause of the ice age cycles, and can be considered constant during a human lifetime.          While these astronomical cycles initiate the changes from ice age to temperate and back, they are not the full story.  Carbon dioxide, like all gases, is less soluble in warm water than cold water.  It is also strongly held by permafrost.  The so...

 

 

 

Earth Day 2021 finds a country overwhelmed by interconnecting crises.   A worldwide pandemic, an economic disaster, racial discord, and overarching all of this is a climate crisis that exacerbates all of the above.  We are experiencing a crisis within a crisis.  We have just learned that CO2 levels in the atmosphere are the highest they’ve been in over 3 million years, that they are rising 100 times faster than normal, and that our global average temperature is rising 10 times faster than in the last 65 million years.   Earth Day 2021 reminds us that the climate is not   Earth Day 2021   Earth Day 2021 finds a country overwhelmed by interconnecting crises.   A worldwide pandemic, an economic disaster, racial discord, and overarching all of this is a climate crisis that exacerbates all of the above.  We are experiencing a crisis within a crisis.  We have just learned that CO2 levels in the atmosphere are the highest they’ve...

The global climate crisis is serious and calls for immediate action.  One solution to the climate emergency is to price carbon to more accurately reflect its true cost.    Economists agree that levying a tax or fee on fossil fuel emissions is the best way to address the climate crisis.  Several proposals before Congress would do this, but one stands out for its simplicity and fairness.  It is market-based and more effective than regulations.  The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act ( EICDA ) will soon be reintroduced in this session of Congress.    It has three parts:   1) Fee, 2) The dividend, and 3) Border Adjustment.   1) Fee.  Coal, oil and natural gas producers would pay a fee upfront based on how much global warming pollution their fuels generate when burned.  The fee would begin at $15 per ton – enough to raise the price of gas 16.5 cents per gallon – and increase annually by $10 per ton until emissi...

  People, including Monday's columnist Harsanyi, need to realize “affordable   fossil fuels” are only “affordable” because they free-ride on the shoulders of climate change victims .     When the costs of climate change are included, for example costs of relocating residents of south Florida and Louisiana because of sea-level rise, these fuels are not “affordable.” With a carbon tax, economics’ magic hand will quietly end petroleum use, as old equipment wears out. Serious economists, including conservative economists, endorse this approach – so it is wrong to try to pretend that climate action is a culture war issue.      America is blessed and innovative country. That why it was natural for America to lead at last week’s climate conference.      Gregory Turco Janesville Gregory Turco/4006 Hearthstone Dr/Janesville WI/608 302  7822/gregory.turco@icloud.com