Climate commitment | The Salt Lake Tribune

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Re "Salt Lake City urges federal climate action" (Tribune, March 28):

Successful approaches to climate change must be polycentric — operating at multiple levels of geographical scale, from the individual home all the way to the national and global.

Urban initiatives like the joint resolution of the Salt Lake City Council and mayor urging President Barack Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency to "swiftly employ and enforce" the Clean Air Act to battle climate change are essential components of the total picture. Without the engagement of cities, any attempt at mitigation and adaptation is doomed to failure.

Similarly, no progress can take place without the commitment of dedicated people, families and communities, working together to reduce their carbon footprints and prepare for the infrastructural and agricultural disruptions that are now inescapable.

But none of these will make sense without broader-scale government support.

Just as the planetary environment supports a vast range of diverse and interdependent ecosystems, only federal government action can support the wide range of individual, local and regional initiatives that are necessary to address the slowly unfolding catastrophes that are the inevitable consequences of the burgeoning greenhouse effect.

Warren Senders

Medford, Mass.