Jessica Langerman, a former high school teacher turned freelance writer, was accidentally catapulted into the world of climate science and taxes in 2009 when she found herself at a lecture organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists. Listening to the grim statistics about how climate change would impact not just the world as a whole but her own state of Massachusetts and the slow response, she began to lobby for a statewide carbon tax, which would collect fees from fossil fuel companies importing oil into the state and thus making it a very costly and prohibitive venture for them. Photo credit: Eric Haynes
