Text excerpted from the book: PROTECTING THE PLANET-Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change (ISBN 978-1-63388-225-6)
by
Budd Titlow & Mariah Tinger
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BG98CCWF / http://www.buddtitlow.com
Robert “Bob” Inglis served as a US Republican Congressman—and steadfast Climate Change denier—in South Carolina from 1993 to 1998 and then again from 2005 to 2011. In 2010, his just-turned-voting-age son entreated him to clean up his act on environmental issues. Taking his son’s request to heart, Congressman Inglis set about studying everything he could find on Climate Change. His final assessment: Saving his soul—in terms of protecting the quality of life of his five children—was much more important than winning another election.
Returning from seeing Antarctica melting, Mr. Inglis introduced the “Raise Wages, Cut Carbon Act of 2009”, which—according to GovTrack.us—would tilt the US taxation system away from income, specifically the Social Security payroll tax, to one that taxes carbon outputs. According to Inglis’ rationale for this bill, while the science on Climate Change is clear— the economics are even clearer. “It is a no-brainer: Change what you tax,” Mr. Inglis said. “Get off of income, get on emissions. You can’t find a member of Congress that disagrees with that. Go look for one. The biggest subsidy of all is being able to dump into the trash dump of the sky without paying a tipping fee.”
After publicly announcing his new-found belief in Climate Change and the imminent need for finding solutions, Inglis soundly lost his bid for re-election in a 2010 Republican primary. But instead of pouting and lamenting his choice to follow his heart, Inglis continued to advance his conservative backing of the Climate Change controversy by founding the “Energy & Enterprise Initiative (E&EI)” in 2012.
E&EI is an educational outreach organization that aims to demonstrate the power of accountable free enterprise. The basic belief is that Climate Change can be solved by eliminating all subsidies—especially the implicit subsidy of the lack of accountability for emissions. By creating a level playing field in which all costs are transparently included on all fuels, E&EI believes that the free enterprise system will deliver innovation faster than government regulations could ever imagine.
Inglis appears in the film Merchants of Doubt and in the Showtime series Years of Living Dangerously (episodes 3 and 4). For his work on Climate Change, Inglis was given the 2015 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award.
Author’s bio:For the past 50 years, professional ecologist and conservationist Budd Titlow has used his pen and camera to capture the awe and wonders of our natural world. His goal has always been to inspire others to both appreciate and enjoy what he sees. Now he has one main question: Can we save humankind’s place — within nature’s beauty — before it’s too late? Budd’s two latest award-winning books are dedicated to answering this perplexing dilemma. PROTECTING THE PLANET: Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change, a non-fiction book, examines whether we still have the environmental heroes among us — harking back to such past heroes as Audubon, Hemenway, Muir, Douglas, Leopold, Brower, Carson, and Meadows — needed to accomplish this goal. Next, using fact-filled and entertaining story-telling, his latest book — COMING FULL CIRCLE: A Sweeping Saga of Conservation Stewardship Across America — provides the answers we all seek and need.Having published five books, more than 500 photo-essays, and 5,000 photographs, Budd Titlow lives with his music educator wife, Debby, in San Diego, California.
CONSERVING NATURE WITH WORDS & PHOTOS 