Letter: Which option regarding climate change would you prefer?

We have several options regarding climate change. Which would you prefer?

1. Ignore the consensus of climate scientists that carbon emissions are causing the Earth to warm. As the warming intensifies either a) Adapt to rising sea level by abandoning coastal property (including entire cities), to depleted mountain snowpack and water resources by paying for new water reservoirs, to more wildfires by funding more firefighting, and to more intense hurricanes by paying for hardening of structures, or b) Pay to temporarily hide the warming with solar reflectors, or c) Fund energy-intensive projects to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

2. Order fossil carbon-intensive industries and electricity production to shut down and ban carbon-intensive transportation.

3. Try to cap emissions with a trading scheme that costs businesses money and can’t be applied to transportation.

4. Put a steadily increasing national fee on fossil fuel carbon and immediately return all revenue to the economy as a uniform monthly dividend to all legal residents. Impose tariffs on goods imported from countries without a carbon price. Let the market find carbon-free energy substitutes, such as wind, solar, and nuclear.

Richland

This story was originally published November 4, 2015 at 6:57 AM with the headline "Letter: Which option regarding climate change would you prefer?."