Photo courtesy Mallory Cremin
Editor:
The week before last week, I went to Washington D.C., to meet with 1,400 other citizens across the U.S. to strategize our upcoming meetings with our representative in the capitol.
Our group, Citizens Climate Lobby or CCL for short, is trying to pass legislation to curb the burning of fossil fuels. It’s getting too hot and polluted for life to thrive here. If we don’t change something, the temperatures will go up 4 degrees and more in 20 years and keep climbing.
Or, we can start charging a fee on all carbon output at the source of most pollution. That will give incentive to reduce. This fee will be given back equally to all households.
The plan is called Carbon Fee and Dividend. In addition to saving 200,000 lives in 20 years, it will raise our economy by $200 million by returning the fees to households who’ll spend it.
On June 12, these citizens from CCL dominated Washington with 450-plus meetings, informing our representatives that we want them to support Carbon Fee and Dividend. We need a solution to the crises of warming temperatures, and all the health repercussions for all of us.
Our representative, Raul Ruiz, met us personally to talk about the plan. We know he has been a great advocate for health in the past, for veterans, for wildfire relief, and recently, for conquering elderly and opioid addiction. We hope he will be a leader in Congress for the health of our planet.
We have hope in this solution while we still have time to slow the trajectory of climate warming.
Mallory Cremin
Idyllwild
