It’s always interesting when someone vehemently and convincingly claims innocence of a crime for years then abruptly admits they indeed committed the offense and want to get the punishment over with as quickly as possible. That’s what’s happened in the case of a West Valley City mining operation that finally ‘fessed up that they dumped deadly selenium into some of Utah’s signature waterways including Great Salt Lake.
There are a number of environmental criminals still running around free and claiming innocence: chief among them Crandall Canyon mine owner Robert Murray. But as independent media coverage, resulting public outrage and political pressure grow, hopefully more of these liars, thieves and environmental murderers will meet justice.
Now let the investigation of the Bush Regime into its protracted efforts to destroy America’s natural places begin. And so too- the claims of innocence.
I couldn’t believe it when I read it in the newspaper of Champaign-Urbana, Illinois where I lived before I moved to Utah. State government is closing a number of state parks, including Kickapoo State Park outside nearby Danville, to pay for their own fiscal incompetence. Residents of the area are fighting it but it’s probably a lost cause and indicative of the tragic and short-sighted attitude our so-called leaders have toward natural places and their contempt for the people who put them in power.
I used to go there often to hike, picnic and row my raft. It’s where I took my camera to practice videotaping wildlife, Nature, and work out in preparation for my grueling trip to Tibet and hike around Mount Kailash in 2005: the result being my documentary “Kora: Tibet and the Trail of Truth.” It was one of the few, remaining natural places in an area long decimated abd denuded by corporate and large-scale agriculture.
Actually, Kickapoo was far from being wild. It was reclaimed coal-mining ground that had been scarred and scraped beyond industrial use. So it was left to return to the Earth and the result was a strangely beautiful park made up of hills, forest, streams, ponds and other stuff Illinois never had much of and has even less of now. Kickapoo is ironically, unnatural.
But open or not, it’s a gleaming example of what humans can do to correct the environmental mistakes we’ve made. Sadly, it’s now also an example of how we just never learn.
Every time I see one of these stories I wonder “Why isn’t Utah getting any of this?” Google is dropping $10.25 million on a “breakthrough” geothermal technology which will be spent in Texas, California and other places that don’t have nearly the abundance of geothermal activity that Utah, Wyoming, Idaho and Nevada do.
It’s clear that AS LONG AS THE SAME PEOPLE RUN UTAH, WE WILL CONTINUE TO LOSE BILLIONS TO COMPETITORS INVESTING IN AND DEVELOPING RENEWABLE ENERGY while we dish our money to the same old, wealthy fossil fuel companies who are going NOWHERE.
What do we have? Pie-in-the-sky oil shale, unproven gasification and a bunch of other maybe technologies that won’t do anything to bring the price of energy down or fight environmental degradation. What are our so-called leaders thinking- assuming thinking is, indeed, going on?
The editorial board of the Provo Daily Herald suffers from the same psychopathy that the Bush Regime has: constantly searching for ways to attack their opponents instead of reading the facts and doing what’s right. In their latest campaign to stop renewable energy in Utah, they’ve written a volume of steaming excrement saying “wind power will be an environmental disaster.” They strangely cite West Virginia’s “much-lauded mountain skyline” as being potentially ruined by the sight of windmills. Apparently, they haven’t seen the pictures of the tops of that state’s gorgeous mountains already ruined by being blown off to dig coal.
Why does a newspaper that ostensibly serves the public spend so much time defending the wealthy fossil fuel industries that gouge not only their customers but our precious natural landscapes as well? Why do they ignore Utah’s abundant renewable resources- solar, wind, geothermal, biomass- and advocate more drilling, mining and other destruction of Utah’s public lands so the rich can get richer?
To their credit, they did run the story by AP about how the oil sands project in Canada is ruining the environment while producing little oil and doing nothing to lower prices. But the question is: IS THE EDITORIAL BOARD OF THE PROVO HERALD ACTUALLY READING WHAT’S IN THEIR OWN NEWSPAPER? Or is there something bigger going on here. My reporter instincts tell me- follow the money.
$24 million. Not a bad investment in the security, independence and economic stability of our country as recently announced the Regime. But their “efforts” to help implement solar energy on a mass scale pales before similar programs in Germany, China, India and virtually every country on the planet. We can only hope that the next administration recognizes the urgent need to develop renewable energy- not give away more public land for fruitless drilling and digging by obscenely wealthy oil and coal companies who THEMSELVES admit the days of fossil fuels are numbered.
I get a charge out of so-called “conservative” media’s ravings that are about as conservative as Bush’s accountants. But this one hits the trifecta of wacko radical right-wing paranoia, blind-deaf-dumb parroting of the fossil fuel lobby’s boilerplate script, and the dismally poor and irresponsible “reporting” ruining newspapers across the country- not this one, unfortunately. This editorial by the Provo newspaper is a LOL for lovers of irony, a self-delivered black eye to the fossil fool industry, as well as even more proof that defenders of America’s enslavement to oil, coal and the usual suspects will not go quietly.
If it wasn’t for inept Republican leadership, out-of-control OPEC oil barons, colluding with our own corrupt fascist government ideologues, and America’s addiction to oil (Bush’s words, not mine)- ALL THE CURRENT GOVERNMENT AND BUSINESS POLICIES THAT GOT US INTO OUR CURRENT ENERGY CRISIS- maybe the Provo Herald’s editorial board wouldn’t have written such an outdated, anti-public health, anti-American waste of words.
But such is the imagination of a newspaper that clearly doesn’t understand the concepts behind freedom enough to write about them. Then again, REMEMBER WHO THE OPERATORS OF THE PROVO HERALD ARE REALLY SERVING. It’s not you, me, their readers or average citizens of the state of Utah. It’s the already-wealthy corporations licking their chops waiting for the chance to waste billions more of our dollars on squeezing a few drops of oil out of Utah’s irreplaceable public lands. And attacking environmentalists? Come on, guys- you can be more creative than that. Attack the real culprit here- THE AMERICAN SYSTEM OF JUSTICE THAT ALLOWS ORDINARY CITIZENS TO CHALLENGE THE SINGLE-MINDED GREED AND INCOMPETENCE OF THE EXPLOITERS OF OUR COUNTRY’S ESSENCE FOR INCREASED PERSONAL ENRICHMENT. Your true masters.
Like the Bush Regime, the Provo Herald’s editorial board loves to see our justice system circumvented on environmental matters- like in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Patriot Act, Guantanamo Bay- to keep the proven inept and self-serving federal and energy industry leaders in power and keep those nasty green goons handcuffed in their treehouses. Conservation? Conservative? Any resemblance here is purely accidental.
It’s only 1,300 residents. But tiny Rock Port has proved that to solve America’s deepening energy crisis, cities, towns, businesses and homes all over the country must take measures into their own hands. They’ve become what appears to be the first town in America that is totally energy independent: not relying on a greedy, coal-powered utility, nuclear behemoth, rich Saudi oil sheik or even government subsidies. They did it with imagination, resolve, a whole lot of wind, and NOT NEARLY AS MUCH MONEY AS THEY FEARED. They are living proof that distributive energy supplies are America’s future and will provide clean, secure and non-destructive power for centuries to come. Every other solution is just plain not as good.
“I have a notion in the next few years you will see some surprises,” he said, advising people to stop and look around, and talk to their bishops and others about ways to save energy and help the environment. He believes creativity is the key to solving environmental issues. “With a small effort, we may save ourselves,” he said.
Important to note is the state motto of Utah is one word: Industry. It appears Mormon leadership wants us to believe the conspicuous absence of any environmental policy or commitment by the LDS is due only its monolithic lethargy, not its aversion to the concept of stewardship at the expense of holy, transcendent commerce. Also note that it will only take “a small effort (to) save ourselves” according to Thomas.
The talk is encouraging. But talk is hot air that won’t help power the Tabernacle’s sound system. Where are the solar panels on the churches? “You see the rumblings already started,” Thomas said. I just hope that’s not just another “earthquake” caused by one of “BS Bob” Murray’s coal mines collapsing on more of Utah’s hard-working, church-going worker bees.
The big question mark here is why our federal government continues to lag behind everybody in America and arguably the entire civilized world by not simply approving an extension of the renewable energy tax credit. It’s never been more important than now and that means, of course, that’s when our leaders let us down. The current administration and his followers have always talked about how the government should stay out and let the private sector do everything. But ironically, they’ve continually delivered untold zillions of dollars in corporate welfare, subsidies and tax breaks to the oil, nuclear, coal and natural gas- industries that hardly need the money in light of their escalating, record profits.
However, giving any even modest assistance to renewable energy is somehow not right anymore. Could it be there’s no federal money left after it’s doled out to nuclear, Big Oil and the usual suspects? Or is it because the renewable energy lobby just doesn’t have as much clout (read: bribe money) as the big polluters? Yup. It’s both.
