Letter: Applaud raising plastic bag charge, despite grumbling

It will take our collective ingenuity and commitment to address climate change.

Applaud raising plastic bag
charge, despite grumbling

Thank you to Jay Inslee and Beto O’Rourke for putting climate front and center in their campaigns. However, our responsibility doesn’t end after we cast our vote for the “greenest” candidate.

It will take our collective ingenuity and (bi-partisan!) commitment between elections to address climate change. We as human beings are notoriously bad at taking the long view when making daily buying decisions, and the sum of our daily decisions becomes the reality with which we live.

Even though I may grumble on those days when I forget to bring my own bag to the grocery store, I embrace financial incentives or disincentives that give me a nudge in the direction I want to go anyway, like the proposed increase in the plastic bag charge, and — my particular favorite — a carbon fee and dividend program to wean us off fossil fuels. (Learn more at https://citizensclimatelobby.org/)

Lucy Claire Curran
Berkeley

 

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