Larry Linden: Big changes needed to avert possible climate “catastrophe”
After a career that included work as a White House advisor in the Carter administration and as a partner at Goldman Sachs, Larry Linden SM ’70, PhD ’76 has turned his attention to what he says is the most critical issue facing humanity today: the threat of catastrophic global climate change. Linden, speaking on campus Wednesday in the opening event of the MIT Climate Change Conversation, urged his audience to join him in making the issue a top priority — and in pushing elected leaders to take concrete action now, before changes to the world’s atmosphere and oceans become irreversibly damaging. And the most effective approach, he emphasized, is by putting a price on carbon emissions from fossil fuels. That could take a number of forms: an outright tax on carbon, a cap-and-trade arrangement, or a revenue-neutral combination of fees and rebates. While the present political climate in the United States may...