Utah Debates Climate Change

The Utah legislature is fond of symbolic gestures. The latest is a beaut. It’s a resolution from the chamber’s Natural Resources Committee, urging the EPA not to proceed with plans to regulate greenhouse gases

until a full and independent investigation of the climate data conspiracy and global warming science can be substantiated.

Mike Noel, a Republican state legislator, elaborated:

This is absolutely — in my mind, this is in fact a conspiracy to limit population not only in this country but across the globe.

Commenters at the Salt Lake Tribune feasted. Here’s a sampling to whet your appetite. One of my favorites:

I hererby surrender my Utah citizenship. I will continue to reside and pay taxes here, but I want to make it absolutely clear that these sub-literate troglodytes do not represent me.

About all those symbolic, nutty resolutions:

Ok let’s see if we can round this all up. So far, the bills offered include exempting Utah from federal firearms laws, exempting Utah from anticipated healthcare, and now, apparently, exempting Utah from physics. All that’s missing for this group is the big red nose and the floppy shoes.

From someone palpably exasperated:

Even if climate change is a hoax like the deniers claim, so what? What if we develop green technology that cleans up the atmosphere, creates jobs, makes renewable clean energy, and makes the world a better place for our children? Why are you know nothing, right wing conspiracy nuts opposed to that???

In Utah, religion is always part of the discussion:

Mormons believe in the most ridiculous, silly fantasies without needing a shred of evidence, yet these Mormon legislators demand “proof” and then ignore the mountains of evidence presented.

The public health issue connection:

If global warming is a total hoax, we are still choking to death along the Wasatch Front on our own fumes this winter. We need to do something serious to stop this. It is already killing people and making people sick. It does not matter whether the thick air is making the globe warmer or not. How much did the carbon companies pay Noel to stage this circus?

There’s hundreds more. Have a read.