Why do we need climate change policies? | Opinion - Deseret News
Why do we need climate change policies? | Opinion - Deseret News
Opinion: What could we lose if we don’t act on climate change?
Climate change policies make some people nervous. Change is uncomfortable. But if we don’t change, the planet will — for the worse
Kelby Iverson opens an irrigation valve to flood an orchard on his property in Hurricane on Sept. 8, 2022.
Spenser Heaps, Deseret News
This is the summer where our climate future has shown its face. The heat has been intense beyond anything in my memory. I’m glad I don’t live in Phoenix where even the cacti are wilting.
Policies that would substantially reduce our use of coal and oil, that might take us off the escalator to misery, make people nervous. I suspect they worry they’re losing their chance at the American dream.
But it’s not the American dream in southern Utah if you can’t work your family’s farm because there is too little water in the Colorado River to irrigate your crops. It’s not the American dream in Florida or California if you can’t buy a house because the insurance companies have fled, and you can’t get a mortgage. It’s not the American dream in Arizona or Texas if you’re telling your children not to play outside because it’s too darn hot.
I admire Rep. John Curtis for starting a conversation about the climate among Republicans. But it is urgent that we move past talk and into action. So if you want to keep the American dream, ask your representatives in Congress to go big on climate to give us all a safe future.
Steve Glaser
Holladay
Related Knowledge Center: Climate science
What began as a theory in the 1890s — that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide could increase global temperatures — had progressed to a scientific fact a century later. Scientists across a range of disciplines are studying the impact of the still-growing concentration of carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere as they call for industrial and governmental policies to slow, then halt, the warming of the planet.