Wayne Clark’s message (“Letter: It’s arrogant to think humans can control the climate,” Oct. 2) expresses a sentiment I think we all agree with. After all, if we could control the climate, it would be no problem to reset it so we didn’t have the extreme drought afflicting most of our state.
Can we consider a more modest claim that humans affect the climate? We know our atmosphere affects the climate, as we don’t have the temperature swings from -200 to 250 degrees that the moon — which is the same distance from our sun — sees every day. We also know that we have changed the atmosphere, with there being way more CO2 in it than when I was born. It’s only common sense that we’re affecting our climate.
I’d like to affect our climate to better our lives. That means using clean energy as much as possible. How to do that? Well, we could regulate everything in sight, but I prefer to simply change our laws so that we no longer pollute for free. If we have to pay to pollute, we’ll do what’s best for our wallets and minimize polluting. And that’s why we should pass HR 763, the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act.
Steve Glaser
Holladay