The 2020 Carbon Fee and Dividend (also known as the Carbon Cash-Back) warrant article that will be on the warrant at Andover’s Town Meeting on Tuesday, March 10 asks members of the New Hampshire Senate and House of Representatives to implement the most efficient lever available to reduce climate pollution.

It accomplishes this goal by levying a fee on the importation into New Hampshire of fossil fuels, based on their carbon emissions, in a way that protects the economy and is fair to all citizens, offering a full rebate of all the money collected (minus small administrative costs) to all New Hampshire residents age 18 and above on an equal basis: about $300 per person in its first year.

For details, visit AndoverBeacon.com/index.php/37283. For the warrant article itself, see page 11 of this issue of the Beacon.

Supporting this initiative is the Carbon Cash-Back Coalition, a group of New Hampshire residents – business owners, employees, parents, students, community leaders, and voters – who understand that being good stewards of our economy requires being good stewards of our natural environment.

Its members understand that change starts with each one of us.

Its members and supporters know that the decades-long failure of the energy market to account for the true costs of using fossil fuels is the root cause of the climate crisis. Carbon Cash-Back is an efficient and fair solution to address that market failure while protecting the economy and family budgets. For more information, visit sites.google.com/view/carbon-cashback-coalition.

A number of Andover residents, including some in the Andover Energy Group, circulated a petition to add this article to the Town Meeting warrant in the hope that it will help motivate legislation at the federal level and in other states, all of which will in turn strongly encourage other countries to follow our lead and match our carbon price.

We urge Andover residents to join us in voting in favor of this warrant article at the March 10 Town Meeting.

Larry and Susan Chase, members of the Andover Energy Group since its formation in June of 2012.