To the editor:
The gales in Hurricane Irma last year wrought physical destruction in Florida and the southeast to the tune of $66 billion.
Through Hurricane Harvey’s 51-inch rainfall in August, nearly 200,000 Texans lost their homes and possessions, with thousands still living in temporary housing five months later.
Smoke-filled skies were stifling California residents as winds so extremely fast and powerful as to be “beyond contemporary experience” fanned wildfires covering hundreds of thousands of acres.
Natural disasters due to higher temperatures under the changing climate have been getting more severe and frequent in recent decades. A report in January from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration gives their staggering 2017 cost to the nation as between $300 billion and $400 billion. And the scourge of what used to be “once in a century” disasters like Hurricane Harvey may come around much more often, every 16 years, if the problem of climate change is not addressed.
A report prepared for the Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland in January, rated extreme weather events as now being the Number 1 risk for likely occurrence, and Number 2 risk for impact on businesses around the world.
It is unfortunate that President Trump chose not even to mention climate change as the source of these horrific economic and human costs, in his State of the Union address. Promising solutions are available and measures implemented in numerous communities around the country, to ward off the worsening risks.
A Climate Leadership Council of major business leaders, economists and conservative Republican elder statesmen from previous administrations has proposed — and presented to the White House last year — a Carbon Dividends proposal which, they state, can effectively address Americans’ “widely shared concern” and worry about climate change. As former Secretaries James Baker III and George P. Shultz, Rob Walton and other Council members note, the Dividends approach would “strengthen our economy, reduce regulation, help working-class Americans, shrink government and promote national security.” The bottom 70% of Americans would have more spending money through it, and, as greenhouse gases are rapidly reduced, “the business environment is enhanced and the climate is protected.”
A similar, Carbon Fee-and-Dividend approach promoted by the non-partisan Citizens’ Climate Lobby organization (CCL) would reduce the harmful emissions 50% below 1990 levels, within two decades. Returning the money raised to American households in the form of monthly rebates, it would strengthen the economy and create many jobs. Information for the local chapter of CCL can be found on its facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/netnccl .
Despite the president’s omission, says Mark Reynolds of CCL, it is obvious that the state of our union is closely linked to the state of our climate. And when many ongoing efforts by states and cities, local governments and citizens are boosted through national climate legislation in the Congress, the state of our union will be undeniably stronger.
We call on Congressman Phil Roe, and Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, to support such much-needed legislation.

Frances Lamberts
Jonesborough