We are responsible for climate change

To the editor:

Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are called that for a reason — they tend to trap heat rather than letting it radiate back out into space. Since the industrial revolution began about 250 years ago, human burning of fossil fuels has raised the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere far beyond any natural variation evidenced in the last few hundred thousand years. And the average temperature of the Earth has been rising over recent decades, changing climate patterns, with more flooding here, more drought there, more and stronger hurricanes, etc.

The top-down response would be government regulations. The market solution would be to internalize the costs of carbon emissions through a carbon tax, so that producers would consider real costs rather than dumping them on the rest of us.

This would lead to cleaner energy and more conservation. The revenues raised could be pumped back into the economy, so there would be no loss of jobs.

We can hold God responsible — or we can acknowledge our responsibility and do something about it.

Rick Wicks

Anchorage