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How to Make the Economy Work for the Many, Not the Few #8: Make the Polluters Pay <i>Us</i>

Instead of investing in dirty fuels, let's start charging polluters for poisoning our skies -- and then invest the revenue so that it benefits everyone. Each ton of carbon that's released into the atmosphere costs our nation between $40 and $100, and we release millions of tons of it every year. Businesses don't pay that cost. They pass it along to the rest of us -- in the form of more extreme weather and all the costs to our economy and health resulting from it. We've actually invested more than $6 trillion in fossil fuels since 2007. The money has been laundered through our savings and tax dollars. This has got to be reversed.
Robert Reich
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Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy, University of California at Berkeley; author, 'Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few''

Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy, University of California at Berkeley; author, 'Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few''
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Instead of investing in dirty fuels, let's start charging polluters for poisoning our skies - and then invest the revenue so that it benefits everyone.

Each ton of carbon that's released into the atmosphere costs our nation between $40 and $100, and we release millions of tons of it every year.

Businesses don't pay that cost. They pass it along to the rest of us--in the form of more extreme weather and all the costs to our economy and health resulting from it.

We've actually invested more than $6 trillion in fossil fuels since 2007. The money has been laundered through our savings and tax dollars.

This has got to be reversed.

We can clean our environment and strengthen the economy if we (1) divest from carbon polluters, (2) make the polluters pay a price to pollute, and (3) then collect the money.

Please see the accompanying video up top, and share.

ROBERT B. REICH's film "Inequality for All" is now available on DVD and blu-ray, and on Netflix. Watch the trailer below:

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