Carbon pricing to zero emissions
I enjoyed the Jan. 3 article West Hawaii Today printed from the Los Angeles Times on efforts of airlines to reduce fuel emissions featuring used cooking oil. It’s encouraging that so many are working on technological fixes to reduce effects of climate change. In Hawaii, we are so dependent on aviation.
Right now there is a political fix that is ready to go: a robust price on fossil fuels. This would help supercharge a transition to alternative energies reducing emissions, which leads to less pollution and better health for all us creatures, besides adding jobs.
Carbon pricing is endorsed by a majority of U.S. economists including 28 Nobel Laureate economists, 15 former chairs of the Council of Economic Advisers, four former Fed Chairs. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine released a report in February 2021 about reaching net-zero by 2050 which included a carbon tax as one of the solutions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change called carbon pricing a necessary condition of ambitious climate policies. When the price of fossil fuel increases because of carbon pricing, a cash-back to residents is also ready to go using this tax on corporations that disseminate these fuels.
U.S. Sens. Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono as well as Reps. Kai Kahele and Ed Case agree or would sign such bills. We need to remind our president of his support of a carbon fee and dividend. My hope is that readers will discuss this with their friends and relatives in states that are not held by Democrats as ours is. We need technological and political roads to an environment that is not further devastated by climate change.
Barbara Best
Wailuku, Maui
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It makes so much sense
With regard to the My Turn column on Friday by Pat Dunlap Evans, what was contained was extremely well-written and stated excellent points and I truly agree, including the part about the shacks that have been allowed to remain; what an eyesore and that is the least offense of those “buildings.”
I would add to the My Turn comments: Hawaiian sensibility combined with haole ambition and Asian efficiency our lifestyles become pili ana; they are all entwined … We all live here and we should all share in the stewardship and caring for Maunakea and what it has to offer and teach on the world stage.
Listen to what Evans said — it makes so much sense.
TK
Captain Cook
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Irony
Does anyone else see the irony in the County of Hawaii creating a “Super Spreader Transit (SST)” encouragement in the midst of a pandemic? Free bus service on the island (the headline reads). It’s so hard to be against something free, eh? But county admins, look again, aren’t we “encouraging” the least vaccinated among us (poor, homeless) to ride the SST (with or without symptoms) stopping at every nursing home, hospital and Walmart on the island — or — are we “encouraging” the next cruise ship visitor to take the same SST to every tourist spot here and then take COVID back to their ship (causing cruise ships to rethink their plans to Hawaii). The ultimate irony, however, is using federal grant dollars (earmarked to “prevent” the spread of COVID) with a free riding SST system. Last word: so, when the hospitalizations rise here and the ships stop coming, don’t forget to think about the SST we’ve created. Irony. Pure irony. Mahalo.
Charlie Woerner
Kailua-Kona
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