As I write, New York subways are flooding because of extremely heavy rainfall. Americans in the West are bracing themselves for yet another record-breaking heat wave, with a little more than a week since the last one, which killed nearly 800 people across Oregon, Washington state and British Columbia. One hundred fifty thousand people die each year because of climate change.

Why, then, are we still going about business as usual? How does anyone feel OK with 150,000 annual preventable deaths? When will our senators champion carbon pricing and enact it immediately so that we can experience tangible results in less than a year?

Pricing carbon at the source works, and it works fast. The money collected from fossil fuel companies goes back to Americans in the form of a monthly dividend check, to spend as they wish. It will be good for poor and middle-class Americans and will quickly transform our electricity sector to net-zero emissions. Of all the developed countries in the world, only the U.S. and Australia are without nationwide carbon pricing. It’s time for our senators to embrace this solution.

How can you help? Spend less than five minutes per month calling your senators and representatives to ask them to co-sponsor the carbon fee and dividend bill. If you are a business owner or community leader, endorse the bill: energyinnovationact.org/endorse/. And talk to people about it. We cannot afford to turn away from those 150,000 (and rising) deaths every single year.

Anastasia Antonacos
Portland

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