This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Why Utah government is wasting good money fighting for what I hope is a lost cause is beyond me. I've written about this before, but the BLM lands belong to all U.S. citizens, not just Utahns. We have to come out of the cowboy thought process (unfortunately) as we are no longer the Wild West (also unfortunately). The world population can no longer sustain the old ideas that the land is there for us to rape.
We also need to aggressively pursue other avenues of energy other than coal and oil, or our planet is going to turn into an unlivable polluted wasteland. The jury is not still out on this, it is scientific fact. Are we mature enough to admit we need change, or are we going to continue on the same destructive path and leave our children a wasteland?
The beauty and diversity of our state is unmatched and needs to be preserved. We are not going to do that by Utah taking over the lands and turning them over to money-grubbing corporations.
By the way, I'm an older man (70) and have seen a lot of change. The way our environment is going is not good. Money means nothing if we have no wild areas.
Paul Hunter
Salt Lake City