Herbert the denier | The Salt Lake Tribune

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Dear deniers of human-caused climate change: Have you looked at our air lately? Have you tasted it? Has it gotten stuck in your throat and made you cough, or made your eyes water?

Guess what? Nature didn't do it. Those noxious vapors and toxic particles are virtually 100 percent human-caused!

Multiply the visible toxic emissions by the amounts emitted daily around the world by cars and factories, power plants and furnaces, fires — methane, chlorofluorocarbons and all other man-made pollutants containing sulfur and nitrogen dioxides — and you begin to see the problem. These contaminants fall to earth as acid rain, poisoning soil, plants and water.

When our toxic air finally clears, it won't magically disappear. It will only go somewhere else, diluting into the atmosphere where it continues to increase, destroying the ozone layer and, ultimately, warming and contaminating the planet.

Are you listening, Gov. Gary Herbert? Those who deny the human influence on global climate blithely abdicate responsibility for their role in it. It's a lot easier to blame Mother Nature.

David E. Jensen

Holladay