Steve Gorham
Originally published in main resource.
Washington state’s Climate Commitment Act (CCA) is likely to be repealed this fall. Gov. Jay Inslee and others claim CCAs will reduce pollution and help stop climate change. But CCA has had no impact on the climate, yet it has raised the cost of living for Washington residents.
Washington State's Climate Pledge Act, passed in 2021, implements a cap and investment plan aimed at reducing state greenhouse gas emissions by 95% by 2050. equal quotas and divert them into state institutions. The bill also establishes a carbon dioxide auction to encourage companies to trade allowances and reduce emissions.
But CCA has helped raise the cost of living in Washington state to one of the highest in the country. Gasoline and diesel prices currently rank third behind Hawaii and California. The cost of emissions subsidies for businesses drives up fuel, food and utility prices for residents.
On January 16 of this year, the Washington Secretary of State approved Initiative 2117 for the November 5, 2024 ballot, and received more than 400,000 signatures of support. Initiative 2117 would repeal the Climate Pledge Act and prevent states from implementing cap-and-trade or cap-and-tax carbon trading programs. Governor Inslee is worried that his signature climate change plan may be rejected by the people.
Governor Inslee recently defended the Climate Pledge Act in Spokane, saying, “…Washington State families are against pollution. They are against smog coming into their communities because they can’t go out and their kids can’t go out and play. They’re against it. premature deaths from pollution, nor do we want to remove our protections against pollution.
However, the governor is wrong. The Climate Pledge Act seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, primarily carbon dioxide. But carbon dioxide is an odorless, invisible gas that doesn't produce smog. Breathing carbon dioxide also does not cause premature death.
We breathe only trace amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but when we burn sugar in our bodies, we are constantly producing carbon dioxide. Every time we exhale, the concentration of carbon dioxide we exhale is 100 times greater than the concentration of carbon dioxide we inhale. The governor incorrectly talked about the effects of inhaling actual pollutants, such as carbon monoxide or smoke particles, that can cause harm to humans, instead falsely attributing harmful health effects to carbon dioxide.
In fact, carbon dioxide should not be called a pollutant. Carbon dioxide is one of the three substances necessary for life, along with water and oxygen. Hundreds of peer-reviewed papers show that higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere help the world's food crops grow larger and be more productive. Carbon dioxide is a compound we can put into the environment that benefits the biosphere.
It is estimated that humans in Washington state emit about 100 million tons of carbon dioxide each year. World human carbon dioxide emissions are estimated at 37 billion tons per year. This means global emissions are 370 times greater than Washington state's emissions.
Furthermore, humans emit very little carbon dioxide compared to what is naturally emitted by the oceans and biosphere. Every day, nature releases about twenty times more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than human industry emit, and removes about twenty times as much carbon dioxide. Washington's emissions are not insignificant as part of the Earth's climate. The Climate Pledge Act will have negligible climate impacts, but if not repealed, it will continue to significantly increase fuel, food and utility prices in Washington.
Why does climate policy never have measurable goals? None of our leaders can say that a policy will lower temperatures by this many degrees, or reduce sea level rise by this many inches, or reduce the number of storms, even when added to other policies. Fighting climate change is like building an army without conquering a mountain, or building a hospital without serving patients. Yet more and more money must be spent endlessly in the service of climateist ideology.
This fall, citizens of Washington state should reject climateism and vote for a resolution to repeal the Climate Pledge Act.
Steve Goreham is a speaker and best-selling author on energy, environment, and public policy Green Collapse: The coming failure of renewable energy.
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