In the way we humans measure time, that arbitrary division of infinity, we’ve just begun a blank page on which to write our future.

In Utah, there are many choices to make and many opportunities to make things better. Or to foul things up beyond all recognition.

Here are some of the most pressing goals, often interrelated, for our leaders, and our people in general, that should go on a 2025 Working Agenda for Utah.

Clean up our foul air.

Parts of Utah frequently register the dirtiest air in the nation, if not the world. It is enough to ruin an otherwise wonderful landscape.

Our political leaders, especially at the state level, are more likely to make excuses than offer solutions. It’s forest fires in Oregon. It’s coal-burning power plants in China. It’s atmospheric inversions that no one can control.

But, really, it’s us.

To face this problem head on we need a much greater commitment to energy efficiency and non-polluting vehicles. More robust public transit and less drive to build ever-wider highways. Energy efficient buildings. Less whiny opposition to federal environmental rules and less devotion to dragging dirty coal and heavy petroleum on our backs into the future.

Energize Utah in new ways.

Very much related to our air quality nightmare is the fact that growing demand for electricity, here and across the nation, won’t be solved by legislative efforts. These include the desire to burn expensive and dirty coal or to build rail lines to haul thick, sticky petroleum.

The future of our economy is tied to innovation in information technology and artificial intelligence, energy hogs with an unprecedented appetite. Utah has enormous potential to cash in by meeting this demand with clean, renewable power sources. Solar, wind, hydrogen, geothermal and, maybe, if we really put our minds to it, nuclear.

Seldom have there been such opportunities for the people of any state to make so much money and at the same time rightfully feel so good about themselves.

Face our water woes.

Between the shrinking Great Salt Lake and the diminishing Colorado River, Utah faces serious shortfalls in its water supply.

A couple of big snow years are not going to fix this. A regional mega-drought shows no signs of reversing and global climate change is real.

It will take planning, cooperation across watersheds, state and even national borders and a willingness to spend money and employ new technologies, and mandates when necessary, to use less water. Utah must be open about its dealings, and not try to be a water hog operating in secret.

And we must start getting somewhat pushy in buying out — at a fair price — water rights held by agricultural interests.

A higher education system steeped in humanities.

As Utah political leaders clamor for cheaper and more practical schools and colleges, we must not lose sight of the fact that the core of education, since the ancient Greeks, has been to raise intellectually curious and well-rounded human beings.

College is not for everyone. We need people skilled in everything from nursing to computer science to auto repair. And higher education, as this board wrote previously, needs reform.

But we also need a culture where people know their history, their heritage, the diverse nature of humanity, the beauty it has created, and the evil it has done, over the centuries.

Preserve public participation.

The rulings of the Utah Supreme Court have given the Legislature and the people an opportunity to bolster our threatened democratic values.

The most important step we can take is to implement the provisions of the 2018 Better Boundaries initiative. That’s the ballot measure, passed by the voters, demanding an independent commission to draw the boundaries of our legislative and congressional districts.

We also must resist ongoing legislative efforts to dilute, to the point of destruction, the people’s constitutional right to pass government reform measures via the initiative process.

Stop fighting and deal with homelessness.

This issue has been at the top Utah’s to-do list for many years. There have been some gains and some necessary about-faces. But the problem never seems to go away.

Both of these things can be true: We can’t arrest our way out of this. We can’t stand by and allow squalor and crime associated with having so many lost souls on our streets to continue.

What we need now is for leaders to stop pointing fingers at one another and lead us to a solution. Or solutions. Many, many more units of affordable, deeply affordable and supportive housing. More facilities for treating the mentally ill and those addicted to alcohol and other drugs.

It will take leadership at all levels. And love, both unconditional and tough.

Predictions for 2025

Looking toward the new year, the editorial board also has a few predictions for 2025.