When you drive, your car gradually wears down the road, wears out asphalt, and puts stress on bridges. Since bigger cars and longer trips use more gas, paying a tax every time you fill up is an easy way to make sure everyone pays their fair share of road repairs based on how much they drive.

As Halloween approaches, neighborhood lawns transform into landscapes of cobwebs, glowing Jack-o’-lanterns, and makeshift graveyards. We delight in pretend monsters, ghost stories, and haunted houses. But as night falls and autumn chills over the Great Lakes, a far more terrifying reality lurks in plain sight—one that doesn't vanish when we take down Halloween decorations.

Whether utilities absorb massive energy demands or local taxpayers shoulder the staggeringly high costs of transitioning away from fossil fuel dependence, the model remains the same: We are all forced to subsidize private profits.

The operative word in our climate crisis is "more." We aren't just facing climate change; we're facing a world that demands more of...