Letter: Put a price on carbon pollution

Maybe, but just maybe, deniers and procrastinators will follow the rest of us to at least blunt the worst predictions for our earthly plight due to the climate crisis.

They won’t even have to accept the science that burning coal, oil and natural gas is overloading our atmosphere with heat-trapping carbon at a critically faster pace than in geologic history.

There’s another path to follow and, for many people it should provide simple clarity: Follow the money.

CNN reported on June 10 that more than 450 major investors — Fidelity, State Street and other asset management firms — signed a letter urging governments to set even more ambitious targets for reducing emissions of carbon and methane and lay out clear plans to decarbonize pollution-heavy industries. Companies, the letter states, should be required to disclose climate risks to investors.

Investors will pass on companies and economies that don’t act urgently and with decisive clarity, the letter states. Maybe a first step would be to de-socialize energy and put a price on carbon pollution that companies have long left to taxpayers to resolve. Just a thought.

Insurers have long worried about climate sensitive assets — billions of dollars of properties at risk from sea level rise just in Miami, where billion-dollar dikes are being built to protect from ever higher reaching tides and storm-driven sea surges. And, Miami is just one dot on the global map.

So, just follow the money. Does anyone argue that worry about risking one’s money isn’t the bedrock principle of today’s conservatives?

Jack D. Shipley

Wauconda