Editor:

The April 22 Fairhope Courier contained a guest editorial by Gary Palmer of the Alabama Policy Institute entitled: “Waxman-Markey Bill will put America on path to poorhouse.”

Palmer’s concern is that attempting to control the emission of greenhouse gases (primarily carbon dioxide caused by burning the fossil fuels gas, coal and oil) will cost almost $2 trillion and will eliminate a million jobs over the next 20 years.

Palmer ignores two important facts about the use of fossil fuels. First: he ignores the fact that the amount of good quality easy-to-reach oil is declining rapidly. Oil production will soon start to decline, just as demand from China and India is increasing, and this will cause a significant increase in cost of energy. We must begin now to prepare for alternative sources of energy.

Secondly: Palmer ignores that fact that if we continue to burn fossil fuels at the rate we have been that this will increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and this will cause global temperatures to keep increasing. This will have disastrous effects on the environment and on the quality of life of our children and generations to come.

The cost of not doing something to limit greenhouse gas emissions will be much greater than the cost of imposing a carbon tax or a cap and trade system.

The cost of reducing fossil fuel consumption does not need to fall on the lower-income people, as suggested by Palmer. Receipts from a tax on carbon consumption could be put into a fund and distributed equally as a dividend to all citizens, as is done now with oil royalties in Alaska. Lower-income people would likely have a smaller carbon footprint so would get a net gain from the dividend. If higher-income people wanted to continue using large amounts of energy generated by fossil fuels they could, but their carbon tax would be greater than their dividend. (19th century economist Henry George, father of the Single Tax, would endorse this proposal.)

Finally, Palmer’s suggestion that reducing the burning of fossil fuels will cost jobs is not correct. Promoting energy and climate security will open many new jobs in developing renewable fuels such as wind, solar, geothermal, etc., and well as in public transportation, building insulation, local food production, and many other green industries and services.

Fairhope