A Scriptural Basis For Mormon Environmentalism

As a Mormon and an environmentalist I believe that ensuring healthy air, water, and ecosystems is our moral and religious duty.  My own Mormon environmentalism is based on three important principles found in the scriptures.

First, all of creation is imbued with a soul, and thus has value.  We are taught that all things, both animate and inanimate, were created “spiritually, before they were naturally upon the face of the earth” (Moses 3:5), therefore they all have a “living soul” (Moses 3:9), and the “worth of souls is great in the sight of God” (Doctrine and Covenants 18:10).  We are even taught that our mother earth herself has a soul and is conscious of our “filthiness”  (Moses 7:48).

Huntsman the Environmentalist

I think Jon Huntsman might be campaigning for my specific vote.  I'm not sure he even cares if he becomes president, as long as I vote for him.  Because, really, I can't see who his constituency might otherwise be.

Huntsman recently had dinner with a bunch of environmentalists and declared that "conservation is conservative."  Add this to a list of other moderate-to-liberal stances, and I'm not sure Huntsman has a firm grasp on today's Republican Party.  This is not a party of moderation, generally, and certainly not a party hospitable to even inklings of environmentalism.

I've already expressed a little political crush on him, so if he keeps reaching out to me personally like this I'm in trouble because my steamy new political partner is the Green Party and I don't want them getting jealous.  But a moderate Mormon environmentalist as President of the United States?  That's hot.

What's Wrong With Us? Some ideas.

Perhaps I'm just in a bad mood, politically, but I made a list of what's wrong with America right now.  Enjoy:

1. Pointless, horrible wars that we won't end.
2. An assault on our civil liberties, mostly due to the Patriot Act.
3. A complete lack of initiative and desire to do something about climate change and out-of-control consumption of fossil fuels.
4. The deterioration of our public school system.
5. The ever-growing income disparity chasm between the rich and poor.
6. A broken health care system and no universal health care on the horizon to fix it.
7. Underregulated crony corporatism.
8. Insulated, unaccountable politicians.
9. Incivility and bigotry.
10. The New York Yankees.

To sum it up: we have a bipartisan assault on peace, liberty, niceness, the poor, and the environment.  Am I missing anything?

Don't You Make This Difficult For Me, Jon Huntsman

It's early, and my feelings are confused right now, but I think I'm starting to really like Jon Huntsman.  I mean, I liked him a lot when he was governor because we just never had governors like him in Utah.  He supported cap-and-trade legislation, he moved us forward on civil rights by supporting gay rights and civil unions, he supported immigrant rights, he called out those ridiculous congressional Republicans for being useless (his word was "inconsequential"), and he generally talked and acted like a moderate in a state where Republican politicians are almost universally crazies.  I even started to like that weird thing he does with his eyebrows.  He wasn't perfect, but he was pretty good.

Then he praised Obama and Clinton and went to work as the ambassador to China in the Obama administration, even when everyone knew he had national aspirations.

Now it is clear that he's running for president and he continues to talk like a moderate, reasonable conservative and, frankly, it's jarring.  Take a look at this article by the Deseret News and in particular the transcript of the interview he did with CNN's John King.

Earth Day and Consumption

I think the most important thing we can do to be good stewards over the Earth is to consume less.  This year we hit the seven billion mark in world population and the numbers will grow to nine billion in the next few decades before leveling off.  This means overwhelming stress on our environments, which we can mitigate by being wise stewards over the Earth.  Here are some prophet warning against over-consumption:

Jacob 2: 11-13

And now behold, my brethren, this is the word which I declare unto you, that many of you have begun to search for gold, and for silver, and for all manner of precious ores, in the which this land, which is a land of promise unto you and to your seed, doth abound most plentifully.  And the hand of providence hath smiled upon you most pleasingly, that you have obtained many riches; and because some of you have obtained more abundantly than that of your brethren ye are lifted up in the pride of your hearts, and wear stiff necks and high heads because of the costliness of your apparel, and persecute your brethren because ye suppose that ye are better than they.

State of the Union Highlights

I was at scouts last night and couldn't watch the State of the Union Address, but as I've browsed through it there are several items that I believe are worth highlighting.  The theme was Win the Future, which I guess is the new Hope and Change.  In both cases, President Obama wants to exude optimism, which is something, as I've said before, we dearly lack around here.  So with optimism in mind, here are a few things worth looking at.

As some of you know, I'm a proud and moralistic environmentalist, so I appreciated the renewed emphasis on renewable energy:

The Condemnation of Hunting for Sport

Utah allows the hunting of black bears, and is currently updating its bear management guidelines.  There is strong support for bear baiting, which is the practice of placing enticing food in a spot and waiting in hiding for the bear to wander up and then killing it.  How brave and heroic.  There are also multiple bear hunts during the year, including spring hunts where many mothers are killed, leaving newborn bear cubs orphaned and, essentially, dead as well.  Utah also allows the hunting of cougars, elk, deer, pronghorns, moose, Rocky Mountain goats, rabbits, bighorn sheep, bison, sandhill cranes, and a whole flock of different kinds of birds.  Have a thirst for killing?  Please come to Utah (although Utah certainly isn't alone in this regard).

Now, I don't have a problem with all kinds of hunting.  The Word of Wisdom gives us some helpful direction in this matter:

12 Yea, flesh also of beasts and of the fowls of the air, I, the Lord, have ordained for the use of man with thanksgiving; nevertheless they are to be used sparingly;

13 And it is pleasing unto me that they should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine.

14 All grain is ordained for the use of man and of beasts, to be the staff of life, not only for man but for the beasts of the field, and the fowls of heaven, and all wild animals that run or creep on the earth;

15 And these hath God made for the use of man only in times of famine and excess of hunger.

Hunting for food is so ingrained in our culture, and essentially every culture on Earth, that I don't have any meaningful objections.  I also admit to eating my fair share of meat, meaning I can't point to hunters as violating the tenet that meat is really only to be used sparingly and in times of winter or famine without also indicting myself.  I am, however, trying to make a conscious effort to reduce my meat intake.

Unfortunately, a substantial amount of hunting that goes on here in Utah has nothing to do with procuring food and raiment, and thus must be condemned.  Do bear hunters eat the bear meat?  How about cougar hunters?  Do you think Sarah Palin is landing the helicopter to gather the succulent wolf meat after her aerial hunts?  How important to our society is the availability of moose and bison burgers?  What wine goes best with sandhill crane, do you suppose?

Global Warming House Cleaning

Two quick global warming related issues:

First, two reports were recently released exonerating the Climategate scientists.  One was released by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency* and another by a special British investigation.  The scientists "didn't skew science to inflate evidence of man-made global warming," but were a little too secretive and acted like doofuses in some cases.  But the science is sound.  Should we expect apologies from all the people (I'm looking your way, Beck, Hannity, DeMint, et al) that smeared them in a political ploy to debunk the idea that humans are causing global warming thereby avoiding regulations on greenhouse gases?  Probably not.

Second, a large chunk of America is now suffering under a massive heat wave.  Can we assume that the skeptics will take this as evidence of global warming just as they take news of cold weather as evidence of its falsehood?  Again, probably not.

*On a side note, as a person of Dutch heritage with the most outrageous Dutch name you will ever encounter, let me just express my extreme pleasure with how the World Cup is unfolding.  Once David Villa gets a mouthful of Van Bommel's elbow and a thighful of his cleats, I expect Spain to fold and become as irrelevant in world soccer as they are in world politics.  Am I taking this too seriously?  Probably.  Hup!

It's Probably Time For A Little More Optimism Around Here

In the latest iteration of how we treat our planet, we have now released probably between 50 to 100 million gallons of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, and we're probably only about halfway through the the release.

It is the sort of disaster that just makes you sick.  Birds and dolphins and fish are dying and people are losing their livelihoods.  We care so much about cheap energy that we are willing to downplay or ignore even the most heinous risks to get it.  Doing the hard things and making the hard decisions for our long-term good is not a particularly strong attribute for us, and the gulf oil spill is the perfect reminder of that fact.

And this applies to more than just the environment.  Israel and Palestine won't make the hard decisions in order to come to peace.  The same goes for many other nations, including America, which value short-term benefits and military force over long-term solutions and true and lasting peace. 

Moderation In A Crowded World

In 1800 just after the United States was formed and the Constitution ratified, the world population was about 978 million, just under 1 billion.  North America had about 7 million people.  If you had suggested to them at the time that they really should consider moderating consumption and conserving natural ecosystems, they probably would have laughed you to scorn.  "The world has more natural resources and available land than we ever could possibly develop," they would say to you with a condescending chuckle.  "Why on Earth should moderate anything?"

Today the world population is approaching 7 billion and North America has about 340 million people.  In a hundred years we'll be pushing 10 billion people.  It is a crowded world we live in now and it is not difficult to imagine running out of oil, chopping down the Amazon rain forest, and polluting our entire atmosphere and oceans to near sterility.  For thousands of years leading up to now humans have never had to moderate because the world was so big and we were so small.  So it is not altogether surprising, then, when so many people today, Americans in particular, continue to scoff at the idea of moderation, at the idea that we have to pull back in order to preserve what we have.

The oil gushing into the Gulf Coast at a rate of 210,000 gallons a day, which we are apparently powerless to stop any time soon, is a fitting example of how we are failing to be proper stewards of the Earth because we are not willing to moderate our thirst for oil.

But the idea of moderation in an ever more crowded world doesn't just pertain to the environment and consumption of goods.

Earth Day

And behold, all things have their likeness, and all things are created and made to bear record of me, both things which are temporal, and things which are spiritual; things which are in the heavens above, and things which are on the earth, and things which are in the earth, and things which are under the earth, both above and beneath: all things bear record of me.  Moses 6:63

The scriptures are laid before thee, yea, and all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator.  Alma 30:44

If all creation testifies of God, then perhaps we can utilize Earth Day as a sort of testimony meeting.  A chance to look around and remember that not only was the Earth created for the temporal benefit of man and woman but also for man and woman to gain a testimony of the Supreme Creator.  I think that this balance has been skewed far to the former at the expense of the latter, and Earth Day is a chance to try to reset our way of valuing creation.

As an example of this conflict, consider the sage grouse.  This little fella makes his home in, if you can believe it, sagebrush habitat.  It just so happens that much of the United States' sagebrush habitat is also oilman habitat, and the more oil wells we sink the less habitat the sage grouse can call home, and the more threatened it becomes.  The Interior Department was petitioned to protect the sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act and recently made its dissonant decision: the sage grouse deserves protection, but we aren't giving it.  Jason Chaffetz showed his lack of imagination in reaction to this decision--"The only good place for a sage grouse to be listed is on the menu of a French bistro"--a variation on a common theme among the anti-environmentalism crowd.  (Why would the French eat a bird native to the American West?  How about: "I get enough grouse at home from my wife and kids, I don't need it in my oil production facilities," or something?)

So anyway, is the sage grouse just an annoyance to brush aside in our thirst for more fossil fuels, or is it possible that this quirky bird that attracts potential mates by making a rubber-ball-bouncing sound with its chest is something to be valued as bearing record of a Creator?  Is it fundamentally ridiculous to put so much emphasis on any single species, such as quirky bird which, seriously, attracts potential mates by making a rubber-ball-bouncing sound with its chest, which is, let's be honest, bizarre and a little gross?

Urban Sprawl and the Utah Lake Bridge

A group of groups, led by the Sierra Club, recently offered their idea regarding a potential bridge that would span Utah Lake: Don't build it.  The Daily Herald, in typical fashion, offered a poorly thought-out rebuttal to the rebuttal, on which I would like to comment.

They were first offended that Marc Heileson of the Sierra Club called it a bridge to nowhere, saying:

Bridge to nowhere? That's quite a slam. Utah Valley is nowhere?  One end of the bridge would land near 800 North in Orem. That's not only at the heart of the valley, it's likely to be even more bustling in the future. Close by is the planned transportation hub for the Frontrunner train line and the Bus Rapid Transit project.

He didn't say a bridge from nowhere, he said a bridge to nowhere.  Clearly Orem is somewhere.  A lot of people live there.  The other side of the proposed bridge, however, is nowhere, and that is a good thing, and it should stay that way.  Unfortunately, there are developers eying the west side of the Utah Lake like Utah Republican lawmakers eye fifteen year old girls in hot tubs (too soon? low blow? I couldn't resist.  I take it back).

The Status of Wolves in Utah

There is a fight intensifying in Utah over wolves. This is a sensitive subject in the West because two powerful groups hate wolves and don't want them in Utah: ranchers and hunters. Ranchers hate wolves because they are viewed as a threat to their livestock. Hunters hate wolves because they makes hunting more difficult.

It has gone so far that state senator Allen Christensen introduced a bill that would have allowed state officials to kills or trap any wolf found in Utah. Sen. Christensen has made the following claims about wolves:

"They serve no real useful purpose."

"Despite what Disney portrays them as, being little fluff balls, they make their living by killing other animals and sometimes they do it just for the sport of the kill."

Both claims are demonstrably false. Wolves never kill for sport. They also serve an incredibly useful purpose ecologically. In Yellowstone, where wolves were reintroduced in the 1990s, the benefit of wolves has been profound. Wolves have kept herds of elk on the move, preventing overgrazing, particularly along streams and rivers. This has increased the stability of the banks and made the water clearer. It has also allowed cottonwood and aspen to grow to maturity which has increased bird and beaver populations. With more beavers damming streams and rivers there is more slow-moving water, which has increased bug populations and further helped birds. Wolves also hunt year-round which means more carrion in the winter to help scavenger populations like eagles and coyotes.

You can only claim that wolves serve no useful purpose if you don't understand science and respect the natural beauty and balance of the Earth.

As for the ranchers, the threat of wolves is overblown. Studies have shown that livestock losses caused by wolves are only a tiny fraction of overall livestock deaths. This simply isn't a big enough problem to justify decimating entire wolf populations.

As for hunters, I just don't have any sympathy. I don't really have a beef with hunters (excluding trophy hunters, i.e. hunting predators, I have a beef with them), but what is best for our ecosystem is exponentially more important to me than what is best for hunters. Wolves and other predators pick off the weakest of the herd, thus strengthening the herd and the ecosystem. Hunters pick off the strongest and biggest, weakening the herd. Plus, it's not a bad thing to give the hunters a little competition, they've had it too easy for too many years. Our early ancestors had to compete with all the other predators to hunt, and thus had to hone their skills and prove their worth. If modern hunters have to try a little harder to kill elk, I say all the better.

Anyway, luckily the bill has been watered down to merely petition the Fish and Wildlife Service to delist wolves as endangered species and allow Utah to come up with its own management plan. The original bill would have been unconstitutional as the federal government has jurisdiction over wolves as an endangered species and a state government cannot supersede that authority. But the fight is not over in Utah. As wolves slowly start to make their way back in Utah after being exterminated in the 1930s, the anti-wolf voices will only get louder.

I hope Utahns will understand that what is best for our state is a healthy wolf population. It will certainly take some adjustment, but if we are truly interested in being good stewards over the Earth we will let the wolves live.

The Health Of Our Democracy

The word democracy derives from the Greek word meaning "the power to the people." Because we treasure it so dearly we are constantly vigilant of threats to it. So with all the talk from conservatives about Pres. Obama precipitating the fall of democracy, I wanted to share my impressions on the current threats to democracy we are facing. I don't think democracy is in any real danger in the short term, but these are the issues I see as worth keeping an eye on, in no particular order:

Campaign finance laws

In the recently decided case Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, the Supreme Court struck down a law that limited the amount of direct campaigning that can be done by corporations and groups. The ruling allows special interests, lobbyists, corporations, labor unions, and the like to spend potentially unlimited amounts of money on political campaigning for or against individual candidates.

This means several things. For one, corporations are now able to buy candidates by promising them immense amounts of money in return for political favors. For another, candidates who speak out against corporations or special interests will be overwhelmed by the corporate money spent to have them ousted.

Because of the exponentially larger amount of money available through corporations, candidates will no longer see the necessity of soliciting funds from the average citizens, nor will they need to persuade an army of volunteers to help them through an election, which are fundamentally democratic ways of getting elected. The average citizen is now expendable. In essence, the Obama campaign strategy relying on millions of Americans donating and volunteering is a thing of the past, replaced by candidates relying on just a few corporations.

The supposed impetus of this decision is to protect political free speech. But the Constitution only protects the free speech of the people, and a corporation is not a person. A special interest is not a person. A labor union is not a person. If democracy is the power to the people, this decision, which takes away the power of the people and gives it to corporations, is the antithesis of democracy.

Lack of term limits

I've made my point about term limits known here. Without term limits in Congress we get an entrenched political elite with virtually no ties to the American people and no sense of urgency to solve the problems of everyday Americans. These politicians' first priority is to remain an elected official with all the power and fame that goes along with it. They are always in reelection mode and, indeed, over 90% of incumbents win reelection. With term limits we would get fresh ideas, fresh leaders, and more emphasis on the American people.

Widening gap between rich and poor

I went into more depth here about the widening gap between the rich and poor in America. Not since the pre-Depression era has the gap been so gaping. The top ten percent of income earners own a majority of the wealth in the United States, meaning of course that the 90% of the rest of us own less than half of the wealth. And it is only getting worse.

Wealth and power being accumulated by the elite very few is the death knell of a healthy democracy. We live in a political system where, increasingly, money, and money alone, talks. A family that has to worry constantly about putting food on the table, losing their home, the lack of affordable health insurance, and the like, will have less free time and mental and emotional will to get involved in the political process. They are also more likely to become jaded and disinterested in a society that is set up for them to fail. This is the new reality for the majority of American families and it is bad for democracy.

Filibuster

I remember back in 2005 when the Republicans were debating whether or not to employ the "nuclear option" and end filibusters on judicial nominees, and potentially ending the practice altogether, thinking that I wish they would go ahead and just do it. Where before it was used sparingly, it is now accepted that any bill in the Senate needs a super-majority of 60 votes to pass, where the Constitution only requires a bare majority. The filibuster is so plainly undemocratic, and potentially unconstitutional, that it should be ended. Here is a chart that demonstrates why now is the time to end the practice (from wikipedia):



Since the Democrats have taken over power in the Senate the use of the filibuster by Republicans has skyrocketed, and before that its use was steadily increasing. The axiom of "majority rule," which is the entire point of "the power to the people" has been replaced by "minority rule." Those that received fewer votes now have more power than those that received more votes.

Destruction of public natural resources
There is nothing more democratic than our natural resources. Everyone has free access to air. Everyone has access to our public lands. Everyone needs access to these things to reconnect with the earth and each other on a spiritual level. God created this world for our use and enjoyment, "for the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare."

But what happens when a certain few corporations are able to freely pollute our air and water, develop our last vestiges of wilderness, and profit from our communal lands? Is it democracy when a single logging company spoils old growth forest that belonged to the public at large? Is it democracy when a single oil refinery makes the air we breath harmful to our health? Our natural resources should be preserved for the people, for all to enjoy, and not managed for the profits of a few corporations. I don't think the destruction of natural resources is a direct threat our democracy, but I do think it is a apt barometer for the health of it.

I'm sure there are other legitimate threats to democracy that I have not named here, this is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but I think these are among the most important.

Sadly, Your Personal Observations Alone Are Irrelevant to Global Warming

I make it a general rule to avoid the Drudge Report, but today he is leading with the big, bad headline: Cold, Cold, Colder. It is cold right now, no question, but clearly the idea Drudge is shoveling is that global warming cannot possibly exist when it is so cold outside! He also links to the following stories:

Temps Plunge to Record as Cold Snap Freezes North, East States...
CHILL MAP...
Vermont sets 'all-time record for one snowstorm'...
Iowa temps 'a solid 30 degrees below normal'...
Power outage halts flights at Washington Reagan National Airport...
Seoul buried in heaviest snowfall in 70 years...
Peru's mountain people 'face extinction because of cold conditions'...
Beijing -- coldest in 40 years...
World copes with Arctic weather...

It's almost like we are trying, at times, to show how little we understand about logic and reasoning and critical thinking. Let me start here: the terms "global warming" and "global climate change" have something in common, can you spot it? Yes, it is the word global. As in, the entire globe throughout the entire year. So a few news stories from a smattering of places that happen to be cold are not persuasive, at all, to refute global warming.

Here are some items that Drudge and others have conveniently omitted from their crack efforts to debunk global warming:

In 2007, the 11 hottest years occurred in the previous 13 years.
2009 was the fifth hottest year on record.
The Aught's was the hottest decade on record.
The polar ice caps are melting faster than expected.
Polar ice is at record lows.
New sea routes are opening because of melting polar ice.

Here we have stories in which scientists that are remembering to take into account the global part of "global warming" find compelling evidence that global warming is occurring, and that man-made actions are a major factor. It is no longer sufficient to walk outside your house to see if it's a cold winter to have an opinion on the global climate. We're a little more sophisticated now.

And I am by no means an alarmist. I tend to think we still have time to take a measured approach to this problem as long as we start now. I think the legislation that is making its way through Congress now, which reduces emissions of greenhouse gases by around 17% by 2020, is a nice sensible step. I think the modest agreement Pres. Obama arranged in the Copenhagen climate change summit can do some real good. By taking moderate steps now we can avoid having to make drastic, economy-altering changes in the future.

In a perfect world we would all voluntarily cut our personal emissions drastically for the good of Earth and ourselves. We would demand more fuel-efficient cars, drive less, use less electricity, buy locally-produced food, recycle everything possible, and demand real investment in alternative and renewable energy sources. We would have a cleaner planet and lead healthier and happier lives.

But in the real world, on a global economic scale, we unfortunately have to take more moderate steps. What doesn't help, though, is people drawing conclusions about global issues based on infinitesimally small data points, like how cold it got last night in their back yard.

Green China

China has made significant political, economic, and environmental progress since the Tian'anmen Square incident of 1989. One major reason that incident was so important is because of the amount, and type, of media coverage it received. I feel that it was truly the turning point of modern China; a moment of shame that sparked the realization that the rest of the world was watching China, and despite their best efforts, the government couldn't keep the wool in place.

China remains a socialist country according to its behavior, and as stated in Article 1 of the Chinese constitution. As such, perhaps many people's deep rooted belief that anything related to "socialism" keeps us cautiously sinophobic. I do agree that there are countless examples of misuse of power in China, including, but not limited to, the suppression of personal freedoms and freedom of the press - for example, government blocking of facebook, twitter, youtube, etc. However, I suggest that we can still benefit by inspecting some aspects of China's policy that are on the right track, and may be even more progressive than our own.

China is a world powerhouse, if not soon The powerhouse. It is one of the commercial mainstays of the world, and its industrial output continues to exceed our own. But economic policy and progress aside, I am fascinated by the push in China to "go green."

Two major areas have started to emerge as fundamental changes in government regulation. The first is the transportation industry, the second is the power industry. China announced last year that several automakers were exploring the production of electric cars, with two manufactures to date already reaching the goal. Interestingly, the government has already committed to subsidizing the purchase of clean cars to be used in a number of cities "by public transport operators, taxi companies and postal and sanitary services."

But this is in the future, right?

I visited the city of Xi'an this summer (famous for the Terracotta soldiers). All scooters are, by law, electric powered which cuts down on both exhaust and noise pollution. All taxi cabs, by law, have been converted to run on natural gas. In fact, there is an initiative to increase the development of Xi'an as the "port" city to the vast resources of western China, and government oversight is trying to ensure the growth and expansion of the city happens with a green foundation by awarding contracts to companies that are "green." Which brings us to the second aspect of government intervention to push the green envelope.

A few years ago, the Three Gorges Dam was completed and the hydroelectric generators started up, bringing energy desperately needed to the region. Although this particular dam is riddled with controversy, it is a step in the right direction, and with the passage of a Renewable Energy Law in 2005, other hydroelectric power stations will follow.

China has also recently begun to investigate wind power. A new coalition was announced in October that partners workers and investors both in the US and in China to develop and manufacture large scale wind farms. The deal does include spending some of the money set aside by the economic stimulus plan, and the project will create jobs locally in Texas as well as in China. I think this is a great direction for our two countries - to pursue a common goal that will benefit citizens of each.

China is also exploring other forms of renewable energy including biomass, solar, and geothermal (of which they are already number one in the world).

But when do these advancements reach the general public?

It already has. In my travels in China, I have recently noticed every (literally) rooftop being decorated with the same object - a solar-powered water heater. These units do not power any electrical outlets, but they do capture the sun's power to heat enough water for all daily use, including showers, washing clothes and dishes, and cooking. Amazingly, these units are very cheap (about $170), and are available in even the most rural of settings.

"Green" is a hot topic, and although the US leads the world in talking about the problem, countries like China openly discussing the problems, and are using government intervention to solve it. We have done some good things, but this is still one aspect where I think government policies and oversight may be the only way to guarantee success.

Utah's Red Rock Wilderness Bill

The Red Rock Wilderness Act to protect, as wilderness, about 9 million acres of federal land in Utah raises several interesting issues.

1. What is the best use of wild lands? Resource extraction? Tourism? Motorized recreation? Non-motorized recreation? Conservation in a pristine state? Development?

2. Who has the most valid claim to making decisions about the use of federal lands in Utah? Utahns? Utah's Congresspeople? Counties? Congress at large? Americans at large?

3. Why, again, do we consider Jim Matheson a Democrat?

The primary conservative argument against the Red Rock Wilderness bill is best summed up by Rep. Rob Bishop in his editorial to the Deseret News. It is that the the bill would foreclose a large portion of Utah to economic activity. First, we should make clear that these are lands that are not suitable for commercial or residential development, nor are they anywhere near where any serious development is likely to occur in the foreseeable future. So really we are talking about extraction: oil and gas wells, hardrock mining, and logging.

The assumption is that Utah's economy will benefit more from extractive industries than what is termed as "ecosystem services," which includes such things as:

provisioning, such as the production of food and water; regulating, such as the control of climate and disease; supporting, such as nutrient cycles and crop pollination; and cultural, such as spiritual and recreational benefits.

Economists have estimated that ecosystem services contribute about $5 trillion each year to the global economy. Really, though, ecosystem services are impossible to quantify because they are irreplaceable. You cannot create through artificial means the natural process that moderates our weather, mitigates droughts and floods, cycles nutrients, controls agricultural pests, purifies the air and water, and more.

Utah, and most of the West, has been beholden to the extractive industries for our entire American existence. Just a fraction of pristine, untouched land remains. It is time we shift our focus from consumption to conservation.

And that is exactly what is happening. A recent Dan Jones & Associates poll, commissioned by SUWA, shows that over 60% of Utahns think that those 9 million acres should be protected as wilderness. SUWA, of course, is biased, but Dan Jones is not, and that is who makes sure the poll is unbiased and objective. More polling should always be done, but that is a pretty good indicator of where Utahns stand on the wilderness issue. Utahns want their undeveloped land to be protected as wilderness.

But Utahns are not the only people with a stake in this issue. These are federal lands, they always have been. They belong to America, and that includes every American. There is a legal doctrine that says that states are in this together and that one state can't discriminate against another. For instance, New York cannot deny landfill space to New Jersey just to make sure there is enough for New York. We have to pool together as a nation.

Americans from Maine to California, from Florida to Alaska, pay taxes that support our federal lands. People from all over the nation come to Utah to experience wilderness. These lands belong to us all. Just as much as the Statue of Liberty, Everglades National Park, and Denali National Park belong to Utahns as much as the residents of the states where they are located. We are in this together as Americans, and all Americans have a right to protect the last vestiges of pristine wilderness in Utah.

So is it really important, as Rep. Bishop wrote, that no Utah Congressperson supports this bill? No. The only thing noteworthy about that is that Jim Matheson continues to win reelection by 10-20 points every year and never takes a stand as a Democrat. He has political capital to stand up for liberals in Utah as our only Democratic representative in Washington, but he never uses it. Like most members of Congress, he appears to make decisions based on maintaining his power and authority than on doing what is right and representing his constituents. It would be a shame if this bill did not pass just because no Utah Congressperson stood up for it, including the perpetually spineless "Democrat" Jim Matheson.

The Red Rock Wilderness bill is good for Utah, economically, ethically, and as a practical matter. It should pass, Utahns want it to pass, Americans want it to pass. We deserve to have our natural, untouched land protected as wilderness both for ourselves and for future generations.

Reclaiming the Spiritual Through Wilderness

Wallace Stegner is the most important voice in the conservation community. His words, decades after they were written and years after he died, still resonate. One of his principle arguments for conservation, written in his beautiful prose, was that wilderness was necessary for us spiritually. He wrote, in his Wilderness Letter:

We need to demonstrate our acceptance of the natural world, including ourselves; we need the spiritual refreshment that being natural can produce. And one of the best places for us to get that is in the wilderness where the fun houses, the bulldozers, and the pavement of our civilization are shut out.

Stegner also quotes American writer Sherwood Anderson concerning the positive effects wilderness has on our nation's spirituality:

Is it not likely that when the country was new and men were often alone in the fields and the forest they got a sense of bigness outside themselves that has now in some way been lost.... Mystery whispered in the grass, played in the branches of trees overhead, was caught up and blown across the American line in clouds of dust at evening on the prairies.... I am old enough to remember tales that strengthen my belief in a deep semi-religious influence that was formerly at work among our people.

Wilderness gives us a sense that there is something greater than ourselves at work. Too many of us are born, live, and die in a world that is completely man-made. We live in fabricated houses, drive our silent-running cars on nicely smoothed roads, work in air-conditioned buildings, wear clothes made of synthetic threads, and eat processed food given to us in ready-to-eat form. How could we not think that we control the Earth, and our destinies? Why should any of us wonder whether there is something greater than us watching over the whole?

There is a lot of hand-wringing about the moral decay of society. We look at the deterioration of the family, the lewdness and filth that flows into our homes through the TV, radio, and internet, and the steadily declining belief in God and practice of religion. As we try to pass laws that reverse this trend we often ignore the fact that our declining wilderness areas and availability of natural settings may be as much to blame as any other thing. Maybe some of the cause of moral decay is that nothing in our environment inspires us to think outside of ourselves and contemplate God.

The destruction of our wilderness also provides a glimpse into what we, as a nation, treasure and honor most. We love technology. We love resources. We love the commercial. We love control and exploitation. We thrive off of the pride that results in taming and leveling and shaping. A road through a forest is much more than getting from point A to point B, it is about conquering the forest, and all the fears and myths that forests have always inspired. But what if we started to value something different? Stegner:

But the mere example that we can as a nation apply some other criteria than commercial and exploitative considerations would be heartening to many Americans.

Perhaps if we started valuing something more than simply what resources we can extract from our natural places, and how easily we can tame them, it would increase our collective spirituality. We could value the beauty of it, the vastness, the tranquility, our ability to go there and think and contemplate, our sense that there are some things we can't control, and in those things we can find something divine.

Shouldn't we as Mormons be leading the fight to protect our last remaining natural places? Shouldn't we be influencing the national environmental discussion to include terms like values and spirituality? I wish we could move past the partisan politics on issue, liberals want conservation and conservatives want exploitation, and agree that wilderness is good for our souls.

Morals and Ethics, Conservatives and Liberals

Even I can admit that conservatives have a few compelling arguments which they use to varying degrees of effectiveness. I've written before that in a world without prejudice and greed, and far less complex than our current world, I could be a small government supporter. No matter how much I support public welfare programs, government-sponsored health care, and unemployment benefits, I believe fundamentally that a person should do all he or she can to be self-sufficient.

One aspect of modern conservatism that I cannot find compelling in any way, the very one that draws many religious people to the movement, is its overt morality.

I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out just why I find morality and politics such a distasteful combination, when separately I place great value on both. I tried to suss it out here and here. I recently came across a little article from a source I am unfamiliar with, but which caused me to think about this subject again. The author tried to explain the difference between morals and ethics:

The difference between ethics and morals can seem somewhat arbitrary to many, but there is a basic, albeit subtle, difference. Morals define personal character, while ethics stress a social system in which those morals are applied. In other words, ethics point to standards or codes of behavior expected by the group to which the individual belongs. This could be national ethics, social ethics, company ethics, professional ethics, or even family ethics. So while a person’s moral code is usually unchanging, the ethics he or she practices can be other-dependent.

I think the example of the environment illustrates this concept. We don't have a very strong sense of morality when it comes to environmentalism. Most moral codes, religious or otherwise, haven't historically included the individual's relationship with the environment. On an ethical level, we can see that it is in our best interests as a society to protect the environment for our physical and mental health, economically, and scientifically. I think conservatives tend to either ignore or openly fight against environmental issues because it doesn't fit neatly into politics of morality. For liberals, however, environmentalism does fit into our ethic and thus we add it to our politics.

It's probably too simply to say that liberals stress ethics in politics and conservatives stress morality, but I think that is the trend. Liberals stress government action that strengthens the social system directly. We favor universal health care, strong environmental protection, and a progressive tax structure. We look at the overriding social structures and attempt to make improvements on that level. We, perhaps, focus on societal ethics.

Conservatives, perhaps, focus on individual morals. They stress moral issues such as abortion and homosexuality. The focus seems to be on me, the individual, as opposed to us, the collective. If the individual is moral, then the society will be strong. They believe that government should support what they feel is a common morality, or a majority morality.

My problem is that I get my morals from my bishop and prophet, so I don't need it again from my governor and president. When I get my morals at church I am with a group of people that have voluntarily chosen the same beliefs and religious structure. But on a national level there is so much more diversity of thought and belief, that legislating morality seems to regularly fail.

We have much less a choice when it comes to countrymen than we do when it comes to fellow worshipers. So I would rather focus our collective efforts on societal ethics than individual morality and leave the latter to the individual. I get my morals from my religion, you may get yours from your parents, or a philosopher, or MTV, or whatever. As long as you don't harm society, you keep your morals and I'll keep mine. And we'll both keep our ability to influence morals on the personal level, and our ability to influence ethics can take the public forum.

And I don't think you can avoid a moral decay of society by legislating it. Morals are dictated beliefs and values, and you can never force a person to believe or value one thing above another. Ethics, however, are dictated by a sense of community and the collective, and as such can be legislated. If we can show how certain actions affect not just ourselves and our relationship with God, but our community and nation, then we can change the way people act. I can't force a person to believe it is intrinsically wrong to pollute the air and water, but I can show that person the health and economic effects of that action.

I think conservatives try too hard to make people believe something is morally right or wrong and not enough time explaining how certain actions play out on the community and national level. I don't want to believe in politics and a political party, I save that for my religion. When it comes to politics I want rational arguments about ethics, not morality.

Ugly Cap-and-Trade Logic

I think the worst argument against a cap-and-trade system to lower greenhouse gas emissions is the China-India argument. It goes like this: Since China and India are not going to do anything in the near term to reduce their GHG emissions, it would be a waste of time for us to do anything. Unless everyone does, nobody should do it.

Think if we used this (non) logic in other areas of our lives. Unless everyone at my place of employment starts working hard all day long, I'm going to slack because my effort is worthless on its own. Until every other nation on earth ends human rights violations, we are going to keep oppressing our citizens because we are just a drop in the bucket. Unless all the other people around this child at the ballpark stop swearing and cussing, I'm going to keep on doing it because it won't really make a difference if I stop.

I find it absurd. We don't do the right thing only when it is popular or common, we do the right thing because it is intrinsically good. And yet conservatives accuse liberals of moral relativism.

Conservatives want the U.S. to be the shining beacon of democracy and justice and fairness, to lead the way in creating democracies. I and other liberals agree with them. But they don't want to be the leaders global warming reduction and other environmental causes which are just as important, or maybe more important, than democracy building. In that case they want to be the followers, the last person through the door after everyone else ensures it is safe. I say we should lead out on the issue and, if so, China and India will come along too.

And we shouldn't be deluding ourselves that our emissions are just a drop in the bucket, or that our reduction of GHG emissions alone is too small to make a difference. The US emits more GHG by total emissions and per capita than any other nation in the world. We account for almost one-fourth of the total GHG emissions worldwide. We are the big fish.

Lets not wait around for everyone else to do the right thing before we act, lets be the world leaders that we are expected to be.