Tom Mast, founder Solve American Gridlock
Global Warming is caused by huge amounts of greenhouse gases (primarily carbon dioxide) collecting in our upper atmosphere. These GHGs that come mostly from burning fossil fuels can take much more than a hundred years to dissipate – after we stop creating them. Global Warming causes climate changes.
As mankind learned to use energy seriously to improve its lifestyle and prosperity over roughly the past 200 years, the global population grew from about 1 billion to nearly 8 billion. The ability to produce vastly more foodstuffs for these people came mostly from energy and fertilizers in an extremely complex maze of industries heavily dependent on hydrocarbons/fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas). The total GHGs emitted by everything involved in foodstuffs is a significant part of the total GHG problem. Having those in authority dictate that all this has to end by a certain date X with alternatives not arranged could condemn millions and perhaps billions of people to starvation.
Other aspects of the modern way of life enjoyed by a significant percentage of the world are also very complex, difficult to replace, and expensive. Transportation, generating electrical power, manufacture of construction materials, construction of all kinds, manufacture of almost everything we use, clothing, heating and air conditioning, creation of alternate sources of energy and its movement and storage, and much more.
The point is that it is reckless to mandate the elimination of important sources of energy and “things” on which we depend without a careful plan for substitutes.
Data show that the present way of combatting global warming is not working. Ad hoc laws and regulations that have no written plan to follow cost a lot of money and do not get the job done. The world is pouring GHGs into the sky.
So, how do we solve this conundrum?
First, we need a Blueprint. We must know where we are going, how to get there, or how long it will take? The Blueprint needs be developed by a Commission of very knowledgeable persons, including at a minimum scientists and economists. Almost surely, it will have to be broken down into a number of logical parts with smaller groups working on each. It will cover roughly the next 80 years. It must be acceptable to most of the world. Congress will need to put the Blueprint into law.
Second, the Blueprint must rest on a foundation of GHG emissions pricing, often called carbon pricing. This is the only way everyone can be depended on to participate in a fair way. Monies collected by government can be returned to the public in the form of dividends.
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