Any thoughts on Utah's Climate Bill?

FACEPALM

I lived in Utah for a few months when I was fifteen. I can’t say that I am surprised.

Next they decree Pi to be 3, by governmental authoritay.

IMHO, there are a number of strawmen on both sides of this debate. I belive in environmental protection, but I think carbon taxes are a scam, and I think the debate as a whole mostly serves to disguise technologies that allow for control of the weather and tectonics.

It sounds a bit silly to spend any time discussing legislation in which the only purpose is for city officials to say they don’t believe a scientific theory.

Do the law makers in Utah not have more pressing matters?

“Officially the most Republican state in America, its political masters have adopted a resolution condemning “climate alarmists”, and disputing any scientific basis for global warming.”

I prefer my science from scientists, not politicians and the religious right.

I’m so happy that I don’t live in Utah.

Seriously? They passed a bill that essentially says “We don’t believe in science.”?!? WTF, Utah? WTF.

Science as propounded by the Elders of the Mormon Church. No thanks.

puts on his skeptics hat because he finds The Guardian to be fairly biased.

Okay, I just read through the bill. It passed in the house of representatives. It is currently assigned to some committee in the senate (but the state hasn’t actually passed the bill, as the Guardian implies). Pretty much all of the Republicans voted for it and the Democrats voted against it. Even though the Guardian puts “essentially harmless” in quotes it doesn’t show up anywhere in the bill. It does say a bunch of stuff about their (the representatives’) doubts about climate change. Here’s what the bill will actually do:

“NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Legislature of the state of Utah urges the United States Environmental Protection Agency to immediately halt its carbon dioxide reduction policies and programs and withdraw its “Endangerment Finding” and related regulations until a full and independent investigation of climate data and global warming science can be substantiated.”

They’re going to “urge” the EPA. That sounds pretty weak to me.

Some parts I think are interesting:

“WHEREAS, the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) “Endangerment Finding” and proposed action to regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act is based on questionable climate data and would place significant regulatory and financial burdens on all sectors of the nation’s economy at a time when the nation’s unemployment rate exceeds 10%;”

“WHEREAS, the United States Department of Agriculture estimates that current legislation providing agriculture offsets and carbon credits to reduce CO2 emissions would result in tree planting on 59 million acres of crop and pasture land, damaging America’s food security and rural communities;”

I think this is some token legislation they put out so that they could tell their constituents that they care about people having jobs, they care about the farmers and ranchers, etc., but that essentially does nothing. There are a fair number of farmers, ranchers, and unemployed people in Utah. It’s some good politicking; it’s basically the same crap that all politicians do.

I don’t know much about Climate Bill, but I can tell you a thing or two about Yosemite Sam.

If Utah’s politicians think they are smarter than the majority of the world’s leading climatologists my psychological evaluation would be: either they are suffering from delusion or megalomania. Sometimes the US is a really strange country. Evolution denial has reached epidemic proportions and people don’t even realize that the rest of the world thinks these people are somehow stuck in the dark ages when earth and water and fire and air were elements. Part of a country which sent people to the moon. Consider the irony.

The El Niño weather phenomenon appears to be taking sides as it parches leftist-ruled parts of South America and brings bounty to US farmers and corporations… A suspicious soul could ask whether El Niño… is on Washington’s payroll.

-reported in The Guardian

Fine. That better? I realize the guardian is biased, but it did happen. Isn’t that what matters?

What matters to me is that folks aren’t deceived and set against each other with dumb, phony arguments.

It’s great that you and everyone else with a brain believes in protecting the environment, but wringing one’s hands over manmade global warming and individual carbon footprints is IMHO a fool’s errand. How else should I reconcile the global warming narrative and the military’s stated goal of weather weaponization and control? If it can be controlled for military reasons, why not use the technology to combat global warming? Or, let’s create a phony dichotomy so that everyone will focus on brandishing their fists at each other over weird weather.