It is important to acknowledge how far we have come as a country and region to improve air quality. Experts at the symposium lauded the Clean Air Act as an extremely effective piece of legislation …
Most of the world breathes dirty air, and only 17% of cities globally meet the World Health Organization’s pollution guidelines, according to a recent report. The world’s smog is especially harmful to young lungs and brains. Nearly 2,000 children under 5 are dying every day from air pollution (second only to malnutrition as a cause of death in that age group) and many more suffer from asthma and cognitive impairments.
We may think this only applies to kids in Bangladesh and Senegal. But children are struggling to breathe right here in Utah. We can do more to protect them.
Salt Lake City and its suburbs rank among the nation’s most polluted cities for both ozone and short-term particle pollution. Our future — like our valley — at times looks hazy and grim. But we can’t allow ourselves to feel terrified to the point of paralysis. Our anxiety should spur us toward action, not despair, and our conversations surrounding air quality should focus not only on the gravity of the problem but the solutions that will dig us out. We need hope, but not the wishful kind. We need action-oriented hope.
Last week, scientific, legal and medical experts gathered at the University of Utah College of Law for the annual Wallace Stegner Symposium to discuss solutions to northern Utah’s harmful air. These experts encouraged Utahns to make individual decisions that will lead to cleaner air in their homes and neighborhoods. We should avoid using inefficient gas-powered yard equipment like mowers, leaf blowers and other potent neighborhood polluters. If possible, we should cook on electric stoves in favor of gas-powered units, which often leak methane and benzene even when turned off.
Additionally, we have to stop spraying so many pesticides near our homes (no matter how annoyingly persistent or even downright charming a polo-clad salesman may be). Pesticides should be used to deal with actual pest problems. But our preventative chemical spraying is out of hand and bad for our health.
Individual behavioral changes are needed, but sweeping legislative change is far more important. Policy is the most important tool in cleaning up our air.
Vehicles are a top source of pollution in northern Utah. Presenters at the symposium were clear that we need to reduce the amount of pollution spewed out of tailpipes. “Electric cars are the obvious choice,” said Logan Mitchell, an air quality scientist and energy analyst at Utah Clean Energy.
With help from the Inflation Reduction Act, Utah is beginning to invest in solar energy, which — if scaled up — will reduce the pollution coming from buildings and homes. But we need to invest more in electric vehicles if we want cleaner air.
The U.S. spends billions each year on fossil fuel subsidies. It’s time to redirect those subsidies toward EVs. Utah lawmakers should beef up incentives to purchase EVs in the state. We also need to invest in charging stations for EVs to be viable.
But even with mostly EVs roaming Utah cities, we would still not be in the clear. The parched lakebed of the imperiled Great Salt Lake sends arsenic-laced dust to nearby communities when the wind blows. Kevin Perry, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Utah, was one of the first researchers to deeply analyze the potential harms of the dust. Though two consecutive wet winters saved the lake from complete collapse, Perry says many “dust hotspots” remain exposed. He is calling for more monitors to track the spread of that dust. But the state Legislature only allocated $50,000 for monitors this past session.
We need greater investments in data collection so that we can make better decisions for the future. More importantly, we simply need to get more water to the lake — especially in years that see above-average snowfall. State and local lawmakers are responsible for curbing water consumption across municipalities and farms by promoting efficient water use in lesser quantities. We should be vigilant in reminding our representatives of that responsibility. In other words, let the phone calls begin.
It is important to acknowledge how far we have come as a country and region to improve air quality. Experts at the symposium lauded the Clean Air Act as an extremely effective piece of legislation that helped us emerge from the incessant smog of the mid-1900s.
But there’s danger in getting so caught up in how far we’ve come that we forget how far we still have to go. On one hand, despair will get us nowhere. But too many Utahns have adopted an artificial brand of hope that assumes things aren’t as bad as experts say. Gov. Spencer Cox often falls into this camp. He chides scientists for peddling “doomerism.” But his position of power requires so much more of him. We need his leadership — not his penchant for happy talk.
True hope begets action.
To close the conference, the Stegner Center’s co-director, Brig Daniels, recited the words of the symposium’s namesake, Wallace Stegner. “One cannot be pessimistic about the West. This is the native home of hope. When it fully learns that cooperation, not rugged individualism, is the quality that most characterizes and preserves it, then it will have achieved itself and outlived its origins. Then it has a chance to create a society to match its scenery.”
Utah is beautiful. It will be even more beautiful when we clean up the smog — giving Utah’s kids a cleaner, more pure horizon.
Source: Utah News