Representatives on Capitol Hill once again showed their backwardness Tuesday by passing a resolution in the House, 51-19, in an attempt to send a message to Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. that Utah has no place in the Western Climate Initiative.
The initiative’s current partners are seven western states, including Utah and four Canadian provinces, and “was created to identify, evaluate, and implement collective and cooperative ways to reduce greenhouse gases in the region, focusing on a market-based cap-and-trade system,” according to the group’s Web site.
The nonbinding measure intended to pull Utah out of the agreement was sponsored by Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab, who voiced his qualms with the WCI by saying, “I do not believe in man-caused global warming.”
Apparently irrevocable proof based on years of scientific research that states human-produced greenhouse gases are contributing to global warming were not good enough for Noel. Global warming is not like the Easter Bunny. Believing in it is not a mere choice, but a deduction based on scientific evidence. Noel said he doesn’t believe in “man-caused global warming,” without statistics or numbers to substantiate his ridiculous claim, which makes it about as worthwhile and scientifically credible as a fart in the wind.
Perhaps Noel hasn’t heard of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s summit of world climate experts that confirmed man’s role in global warming. Maybe he hasn’t walked around Salt Lake City long enough this winter with his eyes open to realize that greenhouse gases are a very real and very serious problem. I’m sure the Earth cringed like an abused dog when this guy was put on the Legislative Natural Resources, Agricultural, and Environment Appropriations Committee.
Between ignoring scientific facts and slandering eco-friendly groups as “radical elitists,” Noel, the environmental equivalent of Ike Turner, managed to find enough time to spew some more astonishingly dim-witted comments.
“Utah’s power is 96 percent coal-fired,” Noel said. “When we cap carbon, we’ll be injured. Renewable energy, however beneficial, will cost more money.”
The fact that this statement is true seems to separate it from all the other fecal matter rolling out of his mouth disguised as English. Unfortunately for Noel, this just isn’t a good argument. If saving the planet that gives life to more than 6.7 billion human beings and countless other living organisms is not worth spending some hard-earned taxpayer money on, then I’m not sure what is.
Noel and the other nonbelievers are going to have a hard time trying to overturn Roe v. Wade if they don’t have a hospitable planet to do it from.
John Stafford