Your Opinion: Sensible clean-energy investments

Dear Editor:

In addition to spreading misinformation on climate change, Nelson Otto's March 27 attack on sweet, great nephew-loving Theresa Sullivan also misconstrued what economists view as the most efficient policy to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Otto should know that people care deeply about their children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews.

And some care about the societal consequences of their investments, especially when it comes to divesting from fossil-fuel exploration and infrastructure to protect our climate and health. But most investors are more concerned about positive returns in their portfolios.

It seems incredibly logical that it is a bad plan to invest in the fossil-fuel industry at a time when all nations of the world have decided to cut carbon dioxide emissions.

Likewise, it makes sense that renewables should be a good investment. To make sure this happens, we only need to make sure all costs are taken into consideration when making our energy investments.

For example, we can't continue emitting millions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions into our atmosphere without causing huge economic cost to society. We're already experiencing these costs in the form of increased insurance premiums and big government disaster relief programs (only two of many examples).

As is often the case, simple solutions work best. In this case, it's placing a price on carbon to reflect the societal cost of burning fossil fuels.

Start low so that we don't shock the economy, but then increase predictably to send a clear signal to the market that polluting will become increasingly expensive. Clean-energy investments will quickly make economic sense - as they should - because they improve our quality of life now and in the future. Isn't that what our investments should do?

Returning carbon-fee revenue equally to all citizens will cover their increased fossil-fuel cost during the transition to clean energy. Otto will be free to invest his dividend and hard-earned dollars however he wishes.