With Earth Day less than two weeks away, it seemed appropriate for George Wilkes to come before the Grand Marais city council with information about the adverse effects of climate change and a resolution calling for the city to show support for the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act that is now before Congress.
Wilkes, a member of the Grand Marais Public Utilities Commission (PUC) and co-chair of the Cook County Citizens Climate Lobby, came armed with a lot of information to present to the council at the council’s Wednesday, April 10 meeting.
The resolution before the city was passed earlier this month by the PUC.
“This legislation is well aligned with the ‘Carbon Fee and Dividend’ policy that you supported in your resolution 2017-03 dated January 1, 2017,” said Wilkes.
Climate change represents a serious threat to the future health, safety, and prosperity of our community, the State of Minnesota, our nation, and the world. And yet, even after decades of effort, the United States has been unable to address this threat, said Wilkes.
“In fact, U.S. carbon emissions actually increased in 2018,” he said.
Why should the city of Grand Marais support a national piece of legislation? It is essential for local governments to participate in grass-roots support for this resolution and to forward that resolution on to our local congressional delegation, Wilkes said, telling the council the goal was to gain bipartisan support in Congress and the Senate, so the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act is passed and becomes law.
Nationwide, about 135 other cities and counties in the U.S. and the State of California, have passed resolutions of support for this national, revenue-neutral, carbon pricing policy, he said.
Because the government hasn’t adequately addressed climate change “to decarbonize our energy supply is in large part a result of a market failure,” said Wilkes, which hides the actual cost of paying for the damage caused by carbon emissions because they are not included in the price of fossil fuels.
The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act is designed to correct this market failure by effectively pricing carbon in ways that:
1) Substantially reduces the future threats of climate change by reducing carbon emissions by 40 percent in the first 12 years, and by 90 percent by 2050.
2) Benefits middle- and low-income families economically.
3) Creates jobs and is good for the economy.
4) Improves public health and saves lives through better air quality.
5) Is politically viable because it is bi-partisan and based on conservative principles such as:
A. Market-based; doesn’t “pick winners and losers.”
B. Revenue-neutral; doesn’t increase funding for the federal government.
C. Decreases federal carbon emissions regulation.
Wilkes displayed a wide array of information on slides that covered the positive sides of passing the Energy & Innovation Act, and the negative aspects of ignoring the dangers to people, plants, water and air caused by burning fossil fuels.
“One of the aspects of climate change is erratic and extreme weather events that we have been seeing,” said Wilkes, adding that rich countries can weather extreme climate events better than poor countries, and the ones that truly suffer the most are impoverished, old, young, sickly, and people of color….”
Most other developed nations have some form of a carbon policy; the U.S. is actually behind on this issue, he said.
Councilor Tim Kennedy, who is the city’s liaison sitting on the PUC, said, “I think this is an important issue… I could support this tonight, but for the rest of the council, this is probably new information.” And he suggested the rest of the councilors get up to speed on the matter before voting on a resolution.
Councilor Kelly Swearingen agreed, saying she needed more time, as did councilor Craig Schulte.
Wilkes expressed gratitude for being allowed to come before the council and make his presentation. The board will study the information Wilkes provided and take up a vote at a future meeting.
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