As a mother, I have spent hours \u2014 probably years at this point \u2014 thinking through \u201cwhat ifs\u201d and trying to prepare for what might happen. An extra pair of gloves, change of clothes, and band-aids certainly added to my peace of mind.<\/p>\n
My children are grown, and now I live on a little piece of land next to the sea. The waves are lapping the rocks maybe 20 feet below me. I find myself thinking more and more of the \u201cwhat ifs\u201d of climate change looking for peace of mind. In the last month, I found an organization called Citizen\u2019s Climate Lobby (CCL).<\/p>\n
And I am hopeful.<\/p>\n
Wherever you come down on the \u201cwhat ifs\u201d of climate change, this organization is trying to pass, at the federal level, solutions that are very doable and cost neutral. In a nutshell, they are proposing three things.<\/p>\n
1. Companies that refine fossil fuels will pay a fee of $15\/ton going up $10\/ton every year \u2014 effectively reducing the use of fossil fuels (approximate reduction of 33 percent in 10 years.)<\/p>\n
2. All those monies collected, minus about 7 percent at first decreasing to 2 percent for administrative costs, would be passed back to every American household monthly as a dividend, almost like a PFD payment each month.<\/p>\n
3. Companies selling to Americans but refining fossil fuels in other less regulated countries will also pay a tariff. This fee would \u201ceven the playing field \u201c on consumer prices for fossil fuels and also help keep jobs here.<\/p>\n
I was never sorry I had that change of clothes for my children\u2019s \u201cwhat ifs.\u201d<\/p>\n
I know I won\u2019t be sorry for exploring CCL and solutions for the \u201cwhat ifs\u201d of our collective future in regard to climate change.<\/p>\n
I just joined this organization at www.citizensclimatelobby.org.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s to as many happy \u201cwhat ifs\u201d as we can muster.<\/p>\n
We are all in this together.<\/p>\n
Beth Kindig, <\/strong><\/p>\n Sitka<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As a mother, I have spent hours \u2014 probably years at this point \u2014 thinking through \u201cwhat ifs\u201d and trying to prepare for what might happen. An extra pair of gloves, change of clothes, and band-aids certainly added to my peace of mind. My children are grown, and now I live on a little piece […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":14,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-34140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34140"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=34140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}