Hottest Summer Ever For Utah, But State GQP Reps Cite Prager "University" To Protect Coal
The West’s forests are dying, its landscapes are burning and its rivers and reservoirs are shriveling up. Utah just experienced its hottest summer on record, coming on the heels of its driest year on record. The negative impacts of climate change are everywhere and the evidence that it’s driven by human-caused emissions is irrefutable. Yet some Utah lawmakers apparently are more worried about a Democratic president’s efforts to address the climate crisis than climate change’s potential to change life in Utah. That was the message of a one-sided presentation Wednesday before the Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Interim Committee.
“What are the implications to Utah families, businesses and government of a federal mandate requiring or compelling a rapid transformation from our current independent and reliable energy and transportation infrastructure to an energy and power infrastructure solely or primarily based on wind, solar and battery storage?” asked Rep. Keven Stratton, the Orem Republican who orchestrated Wednesday’s presentation.
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“I look at what happens down in Sevier and Emery county in my district,” said Rep. Carl Albrecht, R-Richfield. “If we didn’t have [the Hunter and Huntington] power plants and we didn’t have those coal mines, life would be pretty strange down there with the economic impacts. And we just need to use good common sense, which is not so common anymore.”
The centerpiece of Stratton’s presentation was a 5-minute video created by the right-wing media platform known as PragerU. The video featured Mark Mills of the Manhattan Institute delivering a scathing critique of the renewable energy sources championed by President Joe Biden’s policies. Not only do wind and solar have no chance of meeting U.S. energy needs, Mills alleged, but they carry greater environmental impacts than oil, gas and coal. Nowhere does Mills mention how burning these fossil fuels dumps tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere or describe the vast non-climate impacts associated with mining, transporting, burning and disposing of coal. According to all credible science, the buildup of atmospheric carbon is altering global climate systems, leading to sea level rise, violent tropical storms in the eastern U.S. and drought and fire in the West.
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https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2021/09/17/utah-agency-heads-blast/