I apologize for my absence this last week. I have been incredibly busy with work and preparation for school (I'm going back to get an advanced degree) that any free time I had was quickly swiped up by some other task. I am currently visiting my family in Utah, so my posting may still be a little spotty until the middle of next week. I thank you for patience.
Now, on to more important things. So I arrived in Utah last night, and this morning when I looked at the newspaper my father subscribes to (the LDS-owned Deseret News) I found an article that discusses Utah's recent placement of states preparing for and dealing with climate change. Utah was placed in the bottom 12 states, as the Natural Resources Defense Council ranked all 50 states based on water management policy, as well as other factors, in determining that state's preparedness to help its citizens navigate climate change. The NRDC suggested that Utah's current water plans are not enough to help it deal with excessive water as was seen last year, or in the case of too little water, as happened during the multi-year drought during the aughts.
As typical in western state/Republican strongholds versus environmentalism, Utah Governor Herbet's office released a reply to the NRDC's report saying, "We do not need a New York City-based organization to tell Utah — based on their ideological agenda — that we are not taking steps to address our water 'vulnerabilities.'" The fact that the NRDC did this based on current policy adopted by each of the 50 states is negligible to Utah policy makers. They see this as leftist, liberal, tree-hugging environmentalists imposing their "viewpoints" on their state.
I put viewpoints in quotation marks, because the state actually believes environmentalists haven't any ground to stand on. In fact, as the newspaper article points out, in 2010, Utah resorted to stating opposition to anything that could be seen as pro-Obama by passing a series of resolutions. One of those resolutions was that the state legislature did not believe global warming and climate change were real things, and that they are not happening. So, it is hard to encourage a state to do something more about impending events that will affect their citizens when they refuse to accept the fact-based science, and continue to maintain the us vs. them mentality that they create between themselves and scientists/environmentalists.
Instead of rejecting what the NRDC is suggesting before you even consider it, policy makers in all 50 states, especially Utah, should go through their policy and the suggestions offered up point by point. You may be surprised to find some new ideas or new brainstorming time to create new ideas that will actually work better than the ones you currently have in place. Only when you have exhausted every option should you resort to suggestion-making with incredulity and character assassination of the suggesters. This is what we expect of our policy-makers, because when policy is unalterable it is no longer policy, but a dictator's edict.
Now, on to more important things. So I arrived in Utah last night, and this morning when I looked at the newspaper my father subscribes to (the LDS-owned Deseret News) I found an article that discusses Utah's recent placement of states preparing for and dealing with climate change. Utah was placed in the bottom 12 states, as the Natural Resources Defense Council ranked all 50 states based on water management policy, as well as other factors, in determining that state's preparedness to help its citizens navigate climate change. The NRDC suggested that Utah's current water plans are not enough to help it deal with excessive water as was seen last year, or in the case of too little water, as happened during the multi-year drought during the aughts.
As typical in western state/Republican strongholds versus environmentalism, Utah Governor Herbet's office released a reply to the NRDC's report saying, "We do not need a New York City-based organization to tell Utah — based on their ideological agenda — that we are not taking steps to address our water 'vulnerabilities.'" The fact that the NRDC did this based on current policy adopted by each of the 50 states is negligible to Utah policy makers. They see this as leftist, liberal, tree-hugging environmentalists imposing their "viewpoints" on their state.
I put viewpoints in quotation marks, because the state actually believes environmentalists haven't any ground to stand on. In fact, as the newspaper article points out, in 2010, Utah resorted to stating opposition to anything that could be seen as pro-Obama by passing a series of resolutions. One of those resolutions was that the state legislature did not believe global warming and climate change were real things, and that they are not happening. So, it is hard to encourage a state to do something more about impending events that will affect their citizens when they refuse to accept the fact-based science, and continue to maintain the us vs. them mentality that they create between themselves and scientists/environmentalists.
Instead of rejecting what the NRDC is suggesting before you even consider it, policy makers in all 50 states, especially Utah, should go through their policy and the suggestions offered up point by point. You may be surprised to find some new ideas or new brainstorming time to create new ideas that will actually work better than the ones you currently have in place. Only when you have exhausted every option should you resort to suggestion-making with incredulity and character assassination of the suggesters. This is what we expect of our policy-makers, because when policy is unalterable it is no longer policy, but a dictator's edict.
