This is a response to a Dec. 18 letter by Jeff Wilhelm entitled “Science shows both sides of climate debate.”

Were Mr. Wilhelm to count the noses of “equally valid and competent” climate scientists who conclude that we are experiencing a climate crisis primarily caused by mankind and those who don’t, he would find that 97 out of 100 have determined that our pouring 110 million tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere everyday is the reason our planet is heating up.

Only 3 of those 100 have concluded otherwise.

Mr. Wilhelm asks the question, “How is a tax on fossil fuel going to give you a dividend?”

Had he taken the time to investigate how the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act will work by reading the information about the legislation at www.energyinnovationact.org, he would have learned that the revenue generated by a tax on fossil fuel emissions, a tax that increases over time, will be distributed equally to all Americans as a monthly dividend.

Those Americans with a small “carbon footprint” will benefit the most, with the dividend more than offsetting the increasing cost of articles that generate fossil fuel emissions. It really is pretty simple.

The climate crisis, not science, has been politicized by those who don’t want to see what has thus far been “free” disposal of their waste products into the atmosphere burdened by having to pay for that disposal going forward. The fossil fuel industry is underwriting the “science”of climate denial; but it is all of us, and the planet, who are now paying the price.

Bruce Cooper, Cranberry Township