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Letter to the Editor: Addressing Climate Change: Where Self-Interest and World Interest Meet

While I would like to say I get all my news from the Pulse, there are a few exceptions. 

“We’re Headed toward a Very American Climate Tragedy” by Robinson Meyer makes a persuasive case that America needs to pass a version of the Build Back Better Bill (BBBB), despite Sen. Manchin putting his large foot down to change its course.

Robinson explains that this bill is needed, even though it fails to address all of what we need to meet global targets of greenhouse-gas reductions. Addressing climate change should appeal to most folks who are not nihilists or very dogmatic because climate change affects all of us and what we love and value most.

The article explains that we need the passed Infrastructure Bill, which seeds innovative technologies, and the BBBB, which creates markets. Science and technology are, by themselves, not enough to create products made in America. We need a domestic market that tax credits, purchase guarantees and subsidies funded in the BBBB provide.

Robinson offers solar panels as an example where U.S. science and technology created them, but Japan and now China are benefiting from our research. The U.S. government failed to take ideas we created and turn them into products that we could market to the rest of the world. 

Let’s not let the good, our security and our self-interest pass us by. Ask our representatives and the president to make this deal happen.

John Hermanson

Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin