According to a recent analysis by The Nature Conservancy, climate change will raise Utah’s average temperature 6 to 10 degrees during the next century. This would have huge impacts on outdoor recreation, wildlife, tourism and agricultural industries8212;pretty much everything Utah depends on to keep the state running. This study is consistent with ones done by the U’s department of atmospheric sciences, which predicts that the temperature will increase about 7 degrees during the course of 100 years.
The analysis drew on conclusions from a study of the correlation of greenhouse gases and climate change.
Back to that always touchy subject of climate change8212;we have returned to the stumbling block of whether it exists, and we’re not going to do anything about it until we prove 120 percent that it’s real and the imminent cause of death to us all.
If there’s one thing to be learned by going to class every day and listening to someone lecture to you about a subject he or she has been deemed an expert in, chances are, you don’t know everything, and you certainly don’t know everything about every subject. Otherwise you wouldn’t have to go to class all day long to listen to someone else teach you about it.
I have no credentials that would qualify me to make a diagnosis of the climate. I’m willing to leave that one up to the folks in the U’s department of atmospheric sciences, who are qualified to tell me what’s going on. If they can tell me that the climate is changing and what is contributing to it, I’ll accept that.
Show me the data and the basics of how it’s happening, and I’ll believe it. They have the training and experience to know what they’re talking about. The climate is a complicated thing. Let’s not oversimplify it by drawing our own unsustainable conclusions or buying into them from others. Let’s not go running off after any metallurgists (not to be confused with meteorologists) who seem to know what they’re talking about just because their title seems to imply science.
Back to the repercussions of our warming state8212;what happens to Utah happens to you, and the U. The U is an outdoorsy school, and we have a large selection of programs involved in outdoor recreation, the climate and tourism. We offer classes in just about anything outside. Let’s not forget that the department of atmospheric sciences at the U is, in fact, a part of the U. Let’s give our school a little bit of credit and put some support behind the research that comes out of it.
