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Reasons to be green

Before Mr. Monson and the ideological contrarians begin their daily regimen of posturing, I would like to mention his retort to a similar point I made yesterday where he stated that global warming and air pollution are entirely separate issues, and I would like to point out how egregiously wrong he was. When one is reducing emissions overall, one is cleaning up the air.

Since uncertainty may exist regarding the causality of global warming, the proponents of this theory should just sell the idea of just cleaning up the air.

Asphyxiating? I don't think so. The air quality now is much better than even when I was a kid back in the 60's. Kennecott and Geneva Steel were going full bore then. During the summer, you couldn't even see the Oqurrih Mountians from Murray the smog was so bad. My Dad has told me that back in the 30's, 40's, and 50's the air pollution was visibly bad, especially in the winter due to coal being the prime fuel for heating. I remember sitting in school and looking out the window in 5th grade. I thought up new lyrics for the old Primary song, "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree".

Yes, we get our temperature inversions, mainly due to the topography of the area. We get the occasional red burn days.

Global warming is a hoax created by Al Gore. Period.

In my opinion... if you need somebody like Al Gore to give you a "Reason" to take care of your planet, you're an idiot. And if you weren't taking care of your planet BEFORE Al Gore made his hit movie... Your a fool and no amount of listening to or passing along GW_propaganda is going to fix that.

We all have our own reasons for being green. We don't need some outside celebrity or government body to force us to do it for THEIR reasons or THEIR way.

The only solution for these large cities you listed with unsustainable populations (like Los Angeles, Beijing, Mexico City, etc) is to reduce the population. And you know that's not going to happen.

It's interesting that the main people who push the GW crisis live in large cities (where the polution problems are worst). But they want the people in rural America to solve the problem for them.

There's no magic pill these HUGE metropolises can take to solve their resource and polution_problems. Even if we had electric cars, etc, there would still be air polution in these cities (hint: Cars aren't the only cause).

I appreciate your letter, Daniel. I agree with you that pursuing renewable energy sources is a good thing...just like pursuing coal and nuclear energy sources are good things. With growing demand for energy in this state from a growing population, we'll need every source we can find. Wind, solar, coal, nuclear, geothermal, hydro...let's use them all because we'll need them all.

What we shouldn't do is use the heavy hand of government to limit the use of our primary source of energy, based on a scientific theory that is not playing out as predicted in reality. Doing so will cost thousands of Utahns their livelihoods and will unnecessarily make living more expensive for everyone, both of which will hurt the neediest among us the hardest.

Such actions are irresponsible, wrong-headed, and represent poor public policy.

Hippee... Jk I agree.

D. Monson ("What's Wrong with Toxic Substances?") and the other industry shills at Sutherland Institute are remarkably adept at calling good evil and evil good. They won't be satisfied until the sky is brown with NOx and we're all sucking carbonic acid instead of saliva. Why? Because Sutherland is funded by Rogers Corporation, a big polluter in Connecticut.

To Kevin @7:23-

I guess this begins my "daily regimen of posturing"...whatever that means. The point you're missing is that if you want to make the air cleaner, there are much better ways to do it than fighting global warming.

For example, for decades we have been reducing air pollution by scrubbing smokestack emissions for particulate air pollution. Consequently, we've seen drastic reductions in air pollution emissions over that same time period.

Certainly we could attack air pollution by attacking carbon dioxide via global warming policies. Unfortunately, we would destroy the jobs and incomes of thousands of Utahns in the process, particularly impacting the poor.

This begs the question of why we should attack carbon dioxide when better methods, with fewer negatives, exist that we can use? In this light, reducing air pollution via global warming policies is irresponsible and nonsensical way to attack air pollution.

At its root, the reason for this outcome is because global warming and air pollution are separate issues, even though they are related. There are ways to deal with them separately, and those are the responsible ways to handle them.

To Mike @ 9:00 AM: my grandparents tell the same stories, and I am thankful things have improved since then. Are you arguing we shouldln't continue to improve the quality of our environment? I'd like my kids to have a better, healthier world than the one I grew up in. Don't you?

I couldn't agree more with Daniel's arguement.

If you believe in global warming or not, we all need to do more, much, much more, than has been done in the past to reduce pollution, use resources more wisely, and seek means to clean up the damage we have already done.

It is amazing to see and hear comments by so many, justifying continued excess waste of natural resources because of nonbelief in global warming. Such a poor excuse for not being a better steward of our earth.

It ain't easy being green

Re: Derek Monson: Thanks for your well-reasoned, insightful comments. I agree with your logic.

Where is the nuclear power plant discussion. If we want to eliminate the pollution associated with power production for large cities, nuclear is the best way to go.

A thought about environmental issues:
Maybe there is an unknown hand guiding all this environmental stuff, which is trying to streamline the earth's resources so that the earth's population can continue to grow. It could be similar to the industrial revolution, and the development of all the efficient agricultural methods that have been developed.
I think that it is pretty obvious that people who are GW deniers, do so mainly because they don't agree with the ideology of the proponents of GW.
I for one would think it incredibly ironic if the population control/humanist side of environmentalism led a movement that allowed the earth to support an even larger group of people.
D&C 104:17

maybe we can all start taking the emission free light rail to downtown SLC and panhandle. I don't know of any other job I can get in the centrally planned new world we'll be living in.
Seriously, I respect this writer's point of view. I'm not against clean air. I am against people using scare tactics like global warming to achieve an objective (that may or may not have anything to do with clean air). Follow the money....

I do not believe in human caused global warming. Climate change may be happening but it is a natural occurrence. I am a conservative politically, perhaps closer to a libertarian, that government it too intrusive. I am not an environmentalist.

I also own a 7 1/2 year old Toyota Prius and I routinely get 45-50 MPG. I love my car. I didn't buy it to be green but because it is a seriously good piece of technology and efficiency. I have an organic garden and grow a lot of my own food. It is part of a philosophy of being self sufficient, and good stewards of the land and the environment.

None of the political labels so often used here apply to me at all, as I seem to be in both camps at once. The labels and name calling that fills this forum are useless. Do things because they are the right thing to do.

If you really do believe in being a "good steward of the land and the environment," and act accordingly (as you say you do), that makes you an environmentalist whether you like the label or not. You sound like a duck, you walk like a duck...you must be a duck!

@David Lynn | 4:23 p.m.

By this definition almost everyone is an "environmentalists".

The term "Environmentalist" has gradually come to refer to the more RADICAL environmentalists.

I really think most "normal" people are doing a better job every day on being green. This topic has just boiled down to a bickernig match between the more radical extreme positions.

I think if you look at it objectively... most people are doing better today than they were 10 years ago. It's just that some people won't be happy until everyone is doing it THEIR way, or to THEIR Extremes, or till everyone confesses Al Gore and Michael Moore were right all along.

Actually fossil fuels are a replenishing source, albeit slowly.

NO one is saying we don't have pollution problems that need fixing,

but we can do that without destroying individual liberties, economic freedom, or states rights.

The left wing nuts want solutions that take power from us and give it to them (the state), that confisticate by force our money and our businesses,

They want solutions that are disasterous to our economy, and catastrophic to our country.

Let's use common sense and wisdom, be rational, and not be lemmings follong the liberal left wingnuts off a gobal climate change cliff.

An Observer may want to reconsider if fossil fuels are a replenishing (or renewable) source of energy.

It seems that to be considered renewable, an energy source would need to be renewable at a rate equal to or greater than the consumption rate. Even the world's consumption of fossil fuels was reduced by 75% in the next couple decades, our consumption will still outpace any estimate of replenishment.

So, to call fossil fuels renewable is really academic, and absolutely not practical. So, as you say, "Let's use common sense and wisdom, be rational".