Green Building Alliance Meeting- September 2015

The speaker for the night will be Sharon Rippner speaking on the topic of fossil fuel's and how as long as they remain artificially cheap and profitable, they will be a rising threat to our survival. 

Sharon Rippner is a retired psychologist and long-time resident of San Luis Obispo County. She first became aware of and concerned about global warming over 25 years ago and her concern has steadily grown since then. In early 2013 she heard about a promising avenue for citizen action on the issue, Citizens' Climate Lobby, and immediately joined with two other people to found the San Luis Obispo Chapter of this organization.

A Fee-and-Dividend approach to carbon pricing, advocated by former Goddard Institute James Hansen, former Secretary of State George Shultz, and Citizens Climate Lobby, corrects this market failure by forcing fossil fuels to account for their true social costs.

Sharon will explain how fee-and-dividend will internalize the social cost of carbon, rapidly achieve large emission reductions, minimize economic disruption and recruit global participation. She will make the case that this approach has the best chance of protecting future generations from the worst effects of climate change.

To put this innovative solution in context, Sharon will also talk about currently observed and expected impacts of climate change.