LTE in New York Times - Steve Valk

To the Editor:

Re “While the Senate Fiddles” (editorial, May 14):

Like many well-intentioned environmental groups, The Times is of the opinion that the Kerry-Lieberman bill, though far from perfect, will “point the country in the right direction.” Unfortunately, the authors of this legislation were working with a broken compass. By allowing polluters to buy carbon offsets, we will delay by decades America’s conversion to clean energy.

Such offsets in most instances produce no reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. If you pay a landowner not to harvest the trees on his property, demand for lumber does not go down. Those trees are chopped down somewhere else.

A simple, steadily increasing fee on carbon is the best way to make clean energy competitive with fossil fuels within the next decade. Returning all the revenue to households — which the American Power Act does not do — would shield families from the impact of rising energy costs.

It’s been said that solving the climate crisis will be a marathon, and we need to start running now. But let’s not tie our shoelaces together at the starting line.

Steve Valk
Atlanta, May 14, 2010

The writer is communications director and regional manager, Citizens Climate Lobby.

See more at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/opinion/l21carbon.html?ref=opinion