My name is Peter Barrer. I am a retired professional Engineer and a member of 350Mass.
I am writing to testify in favor of House Bill 872 and Senate Bill 481, an act establishing a climate change superfund and promoting polluter responsibility.
Since the late 1970’s, my professional career was in the area of making large commercial and industrial buildings energy efficient. My original motivation was to reduce air pollution and waste of resources. But early in my career “global warming” - as it was known at the time - became public information and I was even more motivated to do my part to prevent catastrophic climate change affecting future generations.
A small number of large oil companies such as ExxonMobil, Shell and Chevron understood the global climate impact of burning fossil fuels, but promoted false science that cast doubt on the proven science. Strong societal action was needed to prevent climate disruption but the false science promoted by the oil companies delayed the needed response for decades.
Now we in Massachusetts are paying the price, with climate related problems like risks of flooding in Boston, droughts threatening food supplies, and most recently dangerous air pollution from uncontrolled wildfires. The oil companies that enabled the delayed response should be paying for these societal costs.
Please support legislation to hold polluters accountable for the damages they have caused while raking in record profits. I urge you to give a favorable report to: An Act Establishing a Climate Change Superfund and Promoting Polluter Responsibility.
Thank you very much.
Peter J. Barrer
Sign up for updates
Do you like this page?