Climate change is real.
This is not cyclical: Studies show a 20-year drought affecting our rivers, and increasing temperatures since the industrial resolution bringing dry conditions that spark fires, cause quicker evaporation and poor air quality.
Our lifestyles — using coal and natural gas for power sources, driving gas powered cars and our dependence on petroleum products — are leading the threat. There are solutions.
Solutions require massive investments, and the government’s participation is necessary. Instead, the current administration is attacking the things that offer protection and withdrawing funding for the things that can combat the warming. Solar and wind energies are vital to our progress, and the grid needs to be updated and improved, yet Trump stopped wind and solar power generation.
Recently, he decided an approved and vetted solar farm on public lands in Boulder, Nevada, would better serve as a data center. As we know, data centers create their own heat and use massive amounts of water. He has ongoing lawsuits to stop wind generation.
In comparison, the mitigation offered by public lands costs little. Besides the vast recreational opportunities they allow, and the billions they add to our economy, they are wonderful carbon sinks.
Trees absorb carbon, but so does undisturbed land and the ocean.
The loss of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase, and many other areas attacked, is not only a loss to local economies, cultural respect, recreational opportunities — yes, you can hike, fish, hunt, camp and cattle can graze in monuments — but a loss of carbon sinks.
Republicans have stood by and watched the destruction instead of supporting less costly solutions. If we want a better, healthier, more affordable world, we must stand for the environment and vote for those who protect it.
Patricia Becnel, Ogden