Preserve Glacier, its water, and the economy

We read with sadness and grave concern the article about the melting glaciers in Glacier National Park (Hungry Horse News, July 16). It is one of our most treasured places.

The melting glaciers and the global warming causing it affects all people and animals along the paths where the water flows. For example, local stoneflies, dependent on frigid creeks fed by glaciers or snowpack, can’t survive warming creeks. They provide a food source for bears, swifts and fish.

This doesn’t just affect Montana. The water in the Columbia River in the Tri-Cities, Wash., where Alex works, comes in part from the Triple Divide in Glacier. The divide waters flow to the Pacific, Arctic and Atlantic oceans, providing sustenance to millions along the way.

For farmers, more winter precipitation falls as rain in a warmer climate, leaving less summer snowmelt available for irrigation. With the additional stressor of warmer days and nights, many crop yields are expected to decrease and have less nutritional value.

And the climate is warming. Even former hardcore skeptics like Dr. Richard Muller from Berkeley Earth realize that the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from our burning of fossil fuels increases the greenhouse effect, resulting in higher air and ocean temperatures.

Climate change has huge costs. The 2011 flood of the Missouri River resulted in nearly $45 million in federal, state and local aid in Montana alone. The $33.7 million federal portion was half of the federal funds provided since 1974. Montana wildfire suppression costs in 2012 were $113 million, with the state picking up $50 million of that amount.

One expense landlocked Montanans might not have heard of are the inevitable costs of sea level rise. U.S. taxpayers will pay to prevent sea level rise, and when that doesn’t work, national flood insurance and other public monies will kick in to move people out of permanently flooded south Florida and other shoreline areas. Property values will be “under water” resulting in another housing bubble with trillions in lost assets.

On the other hand, diversifying our energy sources would reap tremendous benefits, decreasing our dependence on foreign oil and the costs to protect it, and keeping the U.S. at the forefront of research, development and manufacturing for decades to come. The Solutions Project shows Montana can switch to renewables using 2009 technology in 20 years for the same long-term cost as sticking with fossil fuels.

Economists of every stripe tell us that the costs of climate damage are higher than the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In a recent report by the Council of Economic Advisers, it is estimated that for each decade we wait to address carbon dioxide emissions, the costs rise by 40 percent.

There is a cost-effective solution gaining bipartisan support promoted by the Citizens’ Climate Lobby, a non-partisan, national, volunteer organization with a chapter in Bozeman.

It’s called carbon fee and dividend. A $15 per ton fee is placed on fossil fuels — coal, oil and gas — at their source, well, mine or port of entry. The fee rises $10 per ton per year annually in a predictable manner for 10 years.

What’s different about this fee is where the revenue goes: One hundred percent of the revenue is returned to every American household. Not one dime goes to the government. Households get a monthly dividend, reaching $288/month by 2025. Administrative costs for a direct deposit are miniscule (less than 1 percent of the revenue collected) and no new bureaucracy is created.

This dividend provides cash for any price hike in fuel costs, but it also acts as a huge economic stimulus. We’ll have more money to spend on food, insulation, a fuel-efficient vehicle and health care.

Other countries would have an incentive to tax emissions to avoid our border tariff adjustment on products from countries without a fee.

A study of CCL’s fee and dividend proposal showed that by 2035, we’d add $1.38 trillion to the gross domestic product, create 2.8 million jobs and save 227,000 lives, while cutting carbon dioxide emissions to 50 percent of 1990 levels.

The study is available online at http://citizensclimatelobby.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/REMI-carbon-tax-report-62141.pdf.

Please register your support at www.citizensclimatelobby.org and call Sens. John Walsh and Jon Tester and Rep. Steve Daines to ask them to support our carbon fee and dividend proposal. Let’s do what we can for future generations to build a healthy, more resilient economy, preserve the wonders of our world, and protect our water supply.

Alexandra Amonette, Tri-Cities, Wash., and Kristen Walser, Bozeman, are members of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby.