Carbon fee and dividend effective plan for climate
I commend Peter Nierengarten for his op-ed published in the Dec. 18 issue of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette concerning the problem of climate change and the Fayetteville City Council's role in trying to achieve some semblance of controlling this
threat.
In 2013, Citizens Climate Education commissioned Regional Economic Models Inc. to study the effect of a revenue-neutral carbon price on the American economy.
Chosen for its track record of providing analysis to both governmental bodies and the fossil fuel corporations, REMI's analysis concluded that such a system would have strong positive economic effects on the nation's health and prosperity alike.
REMI's analysis concluded that, during the first 20 years alone, a carbon fee and dividend policy would lead to:
1. A 50 percent reduction of carbon emissions below 1990 levels.
2. The addition of 2.8 million jobs above baseline, driven by the steady economic stimulus of the energy dividend.
3. The avoidance of 230,000 premature deaths due to reduction in air pollutants that often accompany carbon emissions.
The mechanism of how this works is simple; it uses the law of "supply and demand." With a fee on carbon (making fossil fuels more expensive) there will be less "demand" for fossil fuels, ergo more use of solar and wind energy, which is clean energy.
There is no rational reason not to adopt this strategy as soon as possible except for the politicization of the subject of "climate change" and our administration's belief that it is a "Chinese myth."
I strongly recommend everyone read the website "https://citizensclimatelobby.org/remi-report/" to understand REMI's plan to control carbon emissions and transition ourselves to using clean renewable energy.
Charles Sisco
Fayetteville
To deal with opioid crisis,
a few tips for the future
With regards to the opioid crisis, here are some practical and do-able actions that can be taken now by the Arkansas General Assembly:
1) Forget about using any of the $2 million Trump grant on "education." That's a failed policy that's been in use since I was in junior high (a long time ago). It doesn't work because kids inevitably cave to peer pressure and smoke a little pot. Once they find out that everything they learned about pot was lie, they wonder what other drugs law enforcement has been lying to them about. Spend all money instead on equipping first responders with Narcan.
2) Substantially increase the number of patients allowed on Suboxone therapy. Right now, a doctor can only treat 16 patients, as I recall. Any more, and the DEA comes knocking on their door. True story.
3) Legalize kratom in Arkansas. The federal government left it up to states to determine the legal status of this plant. Arkansas recently voted to put it in Schedule I status (of no medical use). That was a big mistake. Hundreds of Arkansas addicts, if not thousands, relied on this plant as a safe alternative to opioids and deadly fentanyl-laced street heroin.
4) Don't tighten opioid prescriptions any more than they already are. Thousands of Arkansans with legitimate medical concerns rely on these meds to get through the day without excruciating pain.
5) Allow those who have legitimate medical reasons to take opioids to have access to medical marijuana as a safer alternative, if they so choose.
My hope is that the governor and the Arkansas Assembly will look into these suggestions and determine which are do-able and which aren't.
Brad Bailey
Fayetteville
Commentary on 12/22/2017