Dear Editor:

Martha Morrissy (“Fix the Homeless Crisis before Worrying About Climate Change,” Letters to the Editor, 1/9/20) has a point, we need to spend more to address the homelessness crisis; however, we should not take it from fire prevention, water and sea-level protection, and other measures to mitigate the effects of climate change. 

The cost of climate change already impacts all of us. Ms. Morrissy said that she read that with one volcanic eruption, 5 years of man-made efforts to protect changes in the climate would be wiped out. This is backward. Volcanoes emit sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere which reflects solar radiation and cools the climate. When the Philippines’ Mt. Pinatubo erupted in 1991, it spewed 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, which had a measurable impact: global average temperatures dropped by nearly a degree Fahrenheit during the next two years. 

The Paris Climate Accord aims to hold global warming on Earth to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warming above the average temperature at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in 1750. However, 1.5 C (1.7 F) warming is really the safer limit, and we have already exceeded 1 C (1.8 F). Even if all nations followed their Paris pledges we would still be headed for over 2 C (3.6 F) increase; unfortunately, most countries, including the U.S., have not kept their pledges, so we are headed for a 3 C (5.4 F) or more temperature rise, which will be catastrophic for future generations. 

The last time the climate was 2 degrees C. hotter, 120,000 years ago, the oceans were 20-30 feet higher than today. Do we really want to have oceans 20 feet or more higher when most of the human population lives in cities near the coasts? Where will the people who live there move to, and won’t this worsen the homeless problem that justifiably concerns Ms. Morrissy? This is not a far-off concern, as local beach cities are already planning to raise sea walls to protect their residential and commercial properties: who will pay for this? And what will this do to our local economies? 

The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (HR 763), legislation supported by Citizens Climate Lobby and 76 members of Congress, proposes a carbon fee which is returned to American families equally via a monthly dividend. Economists feel that such a fee is the fastest way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to safe levels. Helen Burns (No Such Thing as Free Money, 1/9/20)) is concerned that the money collected from raising the price of fossil fuels won’t come back to us and that administrative costs will be too high. But HR 763 requires all the money collected to go back to people’s pockets as a monthly dividend check; it also limits administrative expenses to 2.6% after a five-year startup period when the limit is 8.6%. In 2018, the Social Security Administration reported administrative fees of 1.9% of total revenue, so HR 763’s limits are reasonable; and, as we know, Social Security is a very popular program. 

Raising the price of fossil fuels while returning the funds raised to American families will lower fossil-fuel consumption thus reducing greenhouse gas emissions, clean the air, boost the economy, and create clean-energy jobs. And it is imperative that we do so for our children’s future. There truly is a lot of misinformation about climate change and measures to fight it; we all need to become better educated about this matter to take action before it is too late.

Anita Rivero 
Downey