Was this a week of Thursdays for anyone else? But here we are on Friday (birthday of ClimateEye’s mom’s mom) ready to share the best ecoright news of the week.
This week’s must watch: Renewable Energy is way too expensive, right?
This week’s must read: Residents of Tangier Island reject “climate” victim label (Reuters) Residents “want a new sea wall to prevent erosion, not a lecture about saving the world with solar panels.”
EnCourage Tour takes Idaho: Bob Inglis drove the figurative EnCourage Tour bus west this week, where at an event at the University of Idaho in Moscow, he told a packed room of 200, “the way to fix climate change is to tax pollution…the reason you want to tax pollution is to make it so the market can see all the costs and then have fair competition. We think that will deliver innovation far faster than government regulation can ever match.” The EnCourage Tour is a ten-week, ten-city trip across the country to call on our leaders for united climate action and show support for free enterprise climate solutions. Next week, the Tour heads first to Miami then up to Pittsburgh. P.S. I wanted to give you an Idaho song to go along with this post, but there are so many.
Support for carbon tax on the rise: New polling shows that a majority of registered votersroughly 66 percentsupport taxing fossil fuel in response to growing threats of climate change. According to the survey, the average American would be willing to spend $177 per year to address climate change, about 14.4 percent more on energy when compared to current electricity rates in each state. Keep making the case, ecoright!
Collins to stay put: Maine Sen. Susan Collins announced late last week that she will not run for governor next year, as was widely speculated. The most senior Republican senator and 15th in seniority overall, Collins has not missed a roll call vote in 20 years in office. At the press conference she reiterated her belief that “human activity contributes to climate change” and expressed disappointment at the current Administration’s approach to the issue.
U.S. signs G7 climate-hunger statement: The U.S. surprised some climate advocates by signing a G7 statement on the threat climate change poses to global food supplies. “Natural hazards and other crisesdroughts, floods, earthquakes, plant and animal diseases, pest infestation, market shocks and conflictsaffect farmers’ lives, agro-food systems, agricultural production and productivity in regions all over the world. Climate change is projected to amplify many of these issues,” the statement reads.
Trump fixed West Virginia: In an interview on Fox News Radio, President Donald Trump took credit for improving the West Virginia economy with his policies on coal. “I’ve turned West Virginia around, because what I’ve done environmentally with coal,” he said. “And everyone’s saying ‘I can’t believe it,’ because they were having such problems.”
Jesters unite: Led by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, 60 climate skeptics sent a letter to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt asking him to reconsider the agency’s 2009 endangerment finding. On December 15, 2009, the EPA determined after careful review of the scientific record, that greenhouse gas emissions endanger the public health and welfare of current and future generations. This finding provides the basis for federal climate action. Trump’s nominee to head the Council on Environmental Quality, Kathleen Hartnett White, who called belief in global warming “a kind of paganism,” has advocated for rollback of the finding.
This is the ecoright, signing off! See you next week!