Schreiner’s Media Landscape

Most Utahns grimace and stick their fingers in their ears every time Al Gore says something. Which is highly ironic because after seven sorry years, it’s clear they’ve been listening to the wrong guy. In his latest speech/warning, Gore says America needs to change its energy ways fast if we are truly interested in helping our economy, helping our citizens, making America energy-independent again and, perhaps least important, avoiding a possible global catastrophe via a super-heated climate. But for a moment, forget global warming, Gore’s Oscar-winning, self-promotion vehicle and the sad fact that, JEEZ- HE SHOULD’VE BEEN PRESIDENT INSTEAD OF THIS LOSER WE GOT.

Al Gore is right- ESPECIALLY FOR UTAH. While our state leaders grasp for new ways to play the same, sad song, Gore is looking for better instruments for a new orchestra. Yes, Utah has coal, natural gas, uranium and all the other fossil fuels that have helped create the environmental crisis we must get ourselves out of. But we also have greater than average supplies of solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and other renewable fuels. Instead of just a few utilities, oil companies and corrupt political representatives getting rich while the world gets hotter and sicker, more smaller Utah companies providing renewable energy services could share the profits but building a new, sustainable energy infrastructure. The new revenue flow would make not only Utah as a whole richer, but put that energy money in the pockets of local communities, home and business owners instead of a very few utility magnates living in Portland, Los Angeles or wherever.

Ironically, Utahns and their leaders should be FOLLOWING AL GORE instead of opposing him if they are truly CONSERVATIVE. But we all know that common sense evaporates into our filthy atmosphere whenever politics get into the details. Utah must wake up and realize the incredible opportunity we have to distribute our energy wealth for the common good instead of handing more and more of our hard-earned money to wealthy fat cats who are no more concerned about Utah, you or your family than they are about our planet or future.

People read for a lot of different reasons. When I was a news reporter, editor and executive, I read for a living. I never had time for other reading material and after a hard week of dishing the dirt, reading was about the last thing I wanted to do (going back into the newsroom already occupying that position). When I left the news biz in 2003, I read to learn about all the new equipment I had to buy and use to operate my new video business. Five years later, I read almost exclusively for amusement and enlightenment. My short attention span only allows me to ingest material in short doses: magazine articles, essays and captions. I especially enjoy non-fiction essays and short stories about Nature, the environment and just about anything else that would piss off your average Republican or Christian.

Yesterday, rummaging through my favorite book store in the world- Dolly’s on Main Street in Park City- I found my perfect poolside fare: “Passions for this Earth,” a collection of essays saluting legendary Canadian environmentalist and CBC superstar David Suzuki. Among these inspiring writings about the relationship the authors had with Earth and their numerous related causes was one by renowned environmental activist/economist Paul Hawken titled “The Ecologist.” In it, he presents the most accurate, inspiring and colorful metaphor for environmentalists, social justice activists and other similar groups: “humanity’s immune system.” Hawken says (not surprisingly) that the Internet is a huge part of this system. But so are protests, organizations and just caring. He also blames the corporate media for ignoring or missing this huge story for a number of reasons including stupidity, greed, and because they didn’t create it themselves.

I know I’m way behind on this revelation. Others will say it’s not a new concept and Hawken himself came up with it years ago in his numerous books, most significantly “Blessed Unrest.” But for someone who’s getting into the game late (specifically, the “infinite game” metaphor Hawken also employs), I find the concept exciting and inspiring. I won’t go into detail here. You need to read the essay and/or the book. If you’re like me, you’ll be so inspired you’ll want to take to the streets and turn things around in a weekend.

But if you’re one of those who still thinks we can go on exploiting and destroying everything and leaving nothing for the future, our children and all of it, I feel sorry for you. Because you’ve rendered yourself not worth saving. The good news is environmentalism is about life and the immune system will save you in spite of yourself. The system will fight our planet’s diseases whether you want us to or not and when we beat them, you can celebrate with us.

We only ask one favor: for any remedy to be successful, you must get out of our way and let it work. Thanks.

I recently hosted a group of kids taking a summer school course at the University of Utah on the environment and renewable energy. The teacher contacted me through my website and asked if they could all come over to see Solarius. They came over, watched the video I made of the installation very attentively, then came down to the studio where I showed them how much energy I produce and how much pollution it prevents from seeping into their little lungs. They asked great questions (”Why do you need three computers?”), were very concerned about the future and how it was important to start taking care of the Earth. It was a great day.

Yesterday, I got this card in the mail from the kids. They thanked me for showing them my “awesome solar home.” I just about cried. Kids don’t normally make me do that. I usually get itchy.

It was a relatively good winter for air quality along the Wasatch Front. But the bad old days are back as a summer-like weather pattern is muddying the normally cobalt-blue skies. It’s a reminder that solving Utah’s air pollution problem takes vigilence and real change- not luck and reliance on the weather.

It’s not the least-polluting vehicle fuel out there but there’s a lot of it, it works, and it’s a lot cheaper than gasoline. Utah has more natural gas-running vehicles than any state per capita, mostly because we have a lot of it here and the state legislature and corporate superstructure are all invested heavily in fossil fuels. Most environmentalists, including me, are for it but are stronger advocates of electric cars, biodiesel and sustainable fuels. Natural gas is plentiful and cheap- but it has a finite supply. Not a bad stop-gap though. It’d be especially great if people would convert their stupid ATVs and ORVs to run on it. Then drive out to the California desert to play in that sand box instead of ripping up what’s left of Utah’s pristine wilderness.

One of my pet peeves is people who start their cars on a cold or even merely cool morning and let it run for a half-hour in their driveway before driving off. Every shred of evidence and research indicates this not only accomplishes nothing- except warming the interior for the sissies among us- but wastes gasoline and pollutes the air unnecessarily. Now, the story of an Illinois town trying to end this stupid, self-destructive and wasteful habit. This should be happening in every town, at every school and business in America.

It couldn’t go on forever and it didn’t. Utah has benefitted incredibly from lax federal air quality regulations and enforcement. Now, the EPA has tightened the screws and the whining can be heard among business and government scoflaws from Provo to Logan. Sad to think that the people who are supposed to make Utah such a wonderful place to live cannot see the need to make the our air breathable.

Message to Utah governments and industries: Thanks for the new soccer stadium, highways, high employment, low tax rates and fantastic ski areas. Now we all need to concentrate on what’s REALLY important. That includes you. Sorry. Don’t you want your kids to spend their lives out of the respiratory ward too?

Industry leaders visited the White House recently to try and prevent any more meaningful and essential air pollution curbs from being enacted anywhere. This is not unusual as we’ve especially with the Bush Regime who caves into industry like Crandall Canyon. But the excuses for blocking the road to cleaner air have changed as the economy goes south.

Now, industry leaders, instead of blaming themselves and the federal government’s runaway spending for our recession, says requiring businesses to cut their emissions would worsen recession and cause their costs to rise, forcing layoffs, closures, 1000-year floods, Martian invasions and the universe to implode.

To listen to the Utah legislature, you’d think that Utah, with its bullet-proff economy and top-rated state government, is also on the brink of economic collapse if steps are taken to cut industrial air pollutants. Certainly, the bills passed in the session just ended do virtually nothing to address the Wasatch Front’s, Cache Valley’s and Utah and Davis County’s growing air quality crisis. The bill that sets meaningless deadlines for implementing renewable energy specifically requires that any measures are “cost-effective.”

The track record of American and Utah industry is quite clear. Do anything, say anything to avoid taking responsibility or doing anything about our air pollution problem. The Bush Recession is just the latest excuse for businesses and governments to do nothing and let the voters pay for the ignorance and inaction with their lives.

Watching TV news in my house means I hold the remote firmly and jump among all the stations to see what they’ve got. I’ve cut back my news viewing to 10 p.m. because that’s all I can stomach on a daily basis and Fox 13 isn’t worth watching- I don’t care if it’s on at 9 p.m., 2:30 a.m. or whenever. It’s just junk.

The usual 10 p.m. infomenu consists of murder, crime, death, fires, dead babies and basically the same stuff you’ve just watched in the previous three hours of prime time network television. So imagine my surprise when I watched last night and Channel 5 ran a story about the growing problem of wildlife descending upon the lower elevations looking for food left unburied by the record snow depths of the mountains. To their credit, all the news media in town have been covering this story for weeks. But this KSL offering went deeper into the problem of carcass collection, showing a rotting deer corpse on someone’s curb (OK, it qualifies as a death story, I guess).

Then I bounced to Channel 2 where Rod Decker, a reporter I actually met and worked with at the Republican Convention in Houston in 1992, was doing a story about the controversy over new coal-burning power plants being built in and around Utah. He did a good job, talking with all sides including Tim Wagner of the Utah Sierra Club chapter and Utah Clean Air Alliance (FYI: I’m a member of both as well), an outspoken critic of coal plants and whose recent editorial on the subject appears right below this post.

Could it be that environmental stories are ready for prime time? Are enough Utahns showing interest that corporate media are waking up and realizing this is an important issue that needs addressing urgently? It looks like it and I sure hope so.

After nearly five days back in my old hometown outside Chicago, I was ready to come home to Salt Lake. Staying informed as I do on-line, I knew the air here had been the worst of the season the past few days and was going to be bad when we returned Tuesday night.

As we drove home from the airport, it looked like fog. When we woke up the next morning, it looked like Salt Lake staged a gigantic fireworks show the night before and the smoke was still floating in the valley like silt in large water jug. Not only could we see it, we could feel it and, I swear, I could even taste it. But that was probably just my imagination.

It’s not like I haven’t felt or seen our ugly brown shroud before. But when you come in from a different city, you expect better from Salt Lake. The West in general and Utah specifically have a reputation of being closer to Nature, less spoiled than the east and midwest, and caring more for our environment than our unenlightened predecessors. But when you see Salt Lake on a morning like this, you realize our reputation is not only grossly inaccurate but undeserved.

Compared with Chicago, Salt Lake looks like a steel mill. I never thought I’d say that Salt Lake is a stinking, polluted city, especially having been born and raised in and just returned from a stinking, polluted city. But there it is: the truth. And you know, it actually hurts.