Henry M. Paulson Jr.,  a Republican, writes in the Sunday June 22, 2014 Sunday Review (“The Coming Climate Crash”), saying that managing risk is a conservative goal that Republicans should embrace.  He states, “…viewing climate change in terms of risk assessment and risk management makes clear to me that taking a cautiously conservative stance – that is, waiting for more information before acting – is actually taking a very radical risk. We’ll never know enough to resolves all of the uncertainties. But we know enough to recognize that we must act now.”

Paulson, in this article, supports a carbon dioxide emission tax  that would not only reduce the carbon-footprint that is escalating atmospheric warming (the science is definitive on this) but drive the growth of alternative energy development that would not only reduce the rate of growth of carbon emissions but also fuel job growth in other energy sectors.

So, a significant voice of the largely skeptical if not opposing side of the carbon emission debate that is the Republican rank and file, speaks for significant change in our energy policy to reduce our carbon emissions. And he says we cannot wait.

Michael Grunwald in the June 23, 2014 issue of Time, writes of a new global survey by Time that indicates  many Americans still don’t believe climate change is a real issue or a real thing at all. For example, only 40% of Americans “strongly agreed” that the earth is getting warmer when, in fact, the earth is getting warmer.

There are not enough visible and credible voices keeping climate change issues and policies on the front burner.  There are credible voices by the carbon-footprint load, but they are not visible. We need  both: people who get press and are influential as well as credible.

A person like Paulson, from the tribe (Republican) who is largely dismissing the concern as either second-rate or too economically costly (short-term!) to address, on the cover of the Sunday Week in Review is good.