Letter: Issue of climate change isn’t going away

While the revenue-neutral carbon tax on the ballot in Washington in November lacked the majority needed to become law, the issue of climate change that it was to address is not going away. Far from it!

The global average surface temperature set yet another record high in 2016, the carbon dioxide concentration rose to 403 parts per million from 311 in 1957 (Greenland had no ice, and sea level was 80 feet higher the last time the CO2 concentration was that high), and Arctic and Antarctic sea ice cover both dropped to record lows in November. See bit.ly/sea-ice-area

These changes are consequential and would be extremely expensive to reverse, but further changes can be prevented without hurting the economy. Wind and solar energy continue to get cheaper and work very well with hydroelectricity. Batteries continue to get cheaper, enabling affordable plug-in cars with much lower maintenance and operating costs. Hydrogen fuel cell cars are available, and tractors have been produced.

The only remaining obstacle is political will. The carbon tax initiative fell short because voters didn’t recognize it as a revenue-neutral tax shift, from business and sales tax to carbon. Most people come out ahead with a revenue-neutral carbon tax.

This story was originally published January 8, 2017 at 4:37 AM with the headline "Letter: Issue of climate change isn’t going away."