Cliff LyonUtah Senator Still in Dark Ages
…and a little angry.
In an e-mail reply dated Jan 17th, to an earnest Park City constituent, Senator Allen Christensen (Morgan,Summit,Weber) replied;
First, no, I do not believe all the hype about humans causing global warming, if in fact it exists.
Second, No, I’m not your Senator. That would be Senator Ross Romero.
Lastly, I’m afraid you and I are very opposite in our way of thinking so I’ll just leave it at this.
You can email the forward-thinking senator at achristensen ‘at’ utahsenate.org
The questions he was responding to follows.
Second - Do you believe in Global Warming? That is, do you believe that human activity is effecting our climate in such a way that is destructive to our environment?
Third - What are you doing if anything in your own personal life to stop global warming?
Fourth - What are you doing as a Senator to promote the reduction of pollution? Some things that YOU can do as our elected senator include:
Last - What green efforts are being put into the renovated capitol building?
January 22nd, 2007 at 8:59 pm
The original emailer may have been earnest, but unrealistic in expectations. The legislative session is short with much to do. The sorts of questions being asked here are more appropriate for a candidate in a campaign debate rather than in an individual email during the session.
The letter writer might just as well have saved some effort in writing by dropping in a generic pro-environmental pamphlet. If you’re going to write a congressman during the session, have an opinion about a specific issue. “Stop urban sprawl” is a slogan. Begging the senator to “educate the public” without having taken the time to educate themselves on any particular issues before the legislature is unhelpful.
January 22nd, 2007 at 10:00 pm
Bradley,
I agree with you somewhat.
I’m sure you’d agree that no matter whether we agree that global warming exists (I don’t, particularly, nearly to the extent that some claim), it is incumbent upon us to be stewards of our environment. We should be finding ways to reduce pollution, we should encourage renewable energy, etc.
If, in fact, Senator Christensen did respond as quoted above, I would tend, like you, to chalk it up to a busy legislative schedule. But I think it would have been better had the Senator’s reply been more respectful of an (somewhat) alternate point of view, a view some of whose points I’ll wager he actually agrees with.
January 22nd, 2007 at 10:32 pm
In light of the virtually (for all practice purposes) unanimous consensus of interpretation of the voluminous supporting scientific evidence to the contrary, to utter in this month, “I do not believe all the hype about humans causing global warming, if in fact it exists” identifies senator Christensen as so dangerously ideological (to the right of Bush) and lacking in integrity as to demand that he be met with a chorus of protest for his dishonesty or if not treasonous stupidity.
January 22nd, 2007 at 11:02 pm
….and the fact that all planets in our solar system are heating simultaneously?, poles melting on Mars, damn Martians and there carbonaceous lives. Sol is a varible star if I remember my 6th grade IPS(introductory physical science) no denying our inputs, however, output of our little sun has been at a recorded high for a good 30 years now.
Not to mention that global warming is directly responsible for our success as a species, and has been running apace some 20,ooo plus years.
Could it be that we are coincidentally at the apex of a cycle? That said, no denying our input, which is currently being dwarfed by some serious mountain building events all over the earth under the sea, most significantly in the PNW, some Islands coming up off of Vancouver Island, and the Olympics. Lot’s of heat, lot’s of carbon, lot’s of methane, NOAA is out there, as I write this, very concerned you see. The #1 source of carbon in the rather industrialized state of Washington has been confirmed. The rambunctious Mt. St. Helens. Look it up, post intelligencer Seattle, last winter.
I would submit that our warming is very much ocean warming derived, with its correlative effects on the land masses we live on.
It’s on now, the inputs of carbon from irreversible thawing of permafrost in the high latitude, northern and southern regions will input vast quantities of carbon, and more significantly, methane, an irremediable greenhouse gas. It has occurred before naturally, hope we survive it, but we wouldn’t be the first species cut down to size, by inexplicable changes in the earths environs. Check the record, extinction events are part of the earths history.
Far as I know many of you all are still driving 6 cylinders, what for again? Not fast enough? 4wd, good for you! Hauling that extra 400 t0 500 lbs, that translates directly into the carbon you currently seem to fear so much.
So quit it then, or the conversation is TIRESOME.
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:42 am
I’ve been beginning to think of the Global Warming issue as an alternative challenge to the GWoT. You know, something else altogether to put our vast energy behind solving. Got my vote anyway.
January 23rd, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Calorie inputs per person required to pull off the current American life is way high. Includes agriculture, transportatation of all kinds, remedial methods of electricity production. Then there is the chinese brown cloud, which is truly staggering to behold from space, are but a few of our problems. We ask for the cloud to be made, to satisfy our consumption, we bask in the cloud, from afar, sometimes it visits, like some years back it made it to western Colorado. It goes where it goes I guess.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6690
Heating houses and providing for construction materials creates more greenhouse gas emissions than vehicles currently do. Refitting homes for energy savings is well worth the investment, the dividends in this country being burning less coal, hopefully.
January 24th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
What I find interesting about this post and Sen. Christensen’s response is that he was so quick to just dismiss the writer. OK, so he doesn’t believe in global warming… but what does he believe in? Does he believe he is a steward of the earth? His response basically says that he doesn’t believe in *ANY* kind of conservationism, recylcing, things that are just plain common sense … I am thinking that he could have answered the question without so much animosity.
When I was campaigning for the Utah Senate I had people email me whom I disagreed with *all* of the time — but I made sure to at least be friendly to the people. But of course, that was campaign season… I guess a “sitting” senator does not have to be respectful of the citizens who live in the state, even IF they don’t live in the same district.
I would not have been so rude.
January 25th, 2007 at 9:16 am
On the other hand I bet he believes Iraq has weapons of mass destruction that have been hidden in Korea.