Paul Bledsoe is a highly respected veteran of America’s climate battles. He has been in the trenches a long time, including a stint in former President Bill Clinton’s Climate Change Task Force. He is now a lecturer at American University.

Writing in The Hill recently, Bledsoe warned that millions of Americans have been turned off by radical “fossil fuel prohibitionists” who want to ban traditional fuels and undermine “average citizens’ ability to enjoy a middle-class lifestyle.”

Of course, it’s the rapid advance of climate change, not opposition to fossil fuels, that most threatens our lifestyles. The climate-action advocates with whom I’m familiar argue (correctly) that a decarbonized economy would allow a considerably better quality of life than Americans enjoy today.

With more than 80 percent of U.S. energy consumption provided by oil, natural gas and coal,  90,000 Americans die prematurely each year because of fossil-fuel pollution. In fact, 156 million live where breathing is unhealthy, and 99.5 percent of congressional districts experienced at least one federally declared weather disaster between 2011 and 2024.

Given those consequences, life without fossil fuels looks inviting. It also looks desirable for pocketbooks. Even without counting the social costs of carbon, electricity generated from unsubsidized sunlight and wind is less expensive than electricity from coal- or gas-fired power plants. That’s been the case for the last 10 years, according to the financial analysis firm........

© The Hill