Western Opinion Sampler: Climate change, coal and politics ...

— Western problems: Climate change is central issue — Salt Lake Tribune Editorial, 07.02.13If a group of governors in, say, Siberia, met to discuss their common challenges and how best to meet them, you'd expect them to include obvious topics such as long, sub-zero winters. But when the governors of Western U.S. states met last week, they danced all around what should have been the hot topic: climate change.The American West is, in many ways, ground zero for human-caused climate change. We are already experiencing the devastating effects of our reliance on fossil fuels: severe drought; larger, hotter, more destructive wildfires; higher temperatures; shrinking snowpack; dwindling water resources; potentially fatal pollution. We have shortsightedly built our economy around mining and drilling for carbon-based energy. ...

— Climate forecast: A bold plan to turn down the heat — Salt Lake Tribune Editorial, 06.28.13Whether President Barack Obama's sweeping new plan for confronting climate change will eventually meet his second-term goal to sharply reduce carbon emissions is open to argument. But his decision to exercise the prerogatives of the executive branch to address the threat is a necessarily bold end run around a divided Congress that has proven unwilling to face up to the dire consequences of its own inaction. ...

— The world we leave behind — Barack Obama | For The Salt Lake TribuneA week ago, I unveiled a new national plan to confront climate change. It's a plan that will reduce carbon pollution to prevent the worst effects of climate change, prepare our country for the effects we can't stop, and lead the world in combating the growing threat of a changing climate.Many Americans who already feel the effects of climate change don't have time to deny it — they're busy dealing with it. Firefighters are braving longer wildfire seasons. Farmers are seeing crops wilt one year, and wash away the next. Western families are worried about water that's drying up. And while we know no single weather event is caused solely by climate change, we also know that in an increasingly warmer world, all weather events are affected by it....

— The Great Divider focuses on global warming, coal — Colorado Springs Gazette Editorial

— Obama launching a war on coal? We can only hope — San Jose Mercury News Editorial

— Our communities need the boost coal would bring — Diane Pohl and Sandy Toms | For The Oregonian

— Inhospitable Earth — compared to what? — Jonah Goldberg | For The Los Angeles TimesOK, things have gotten a wee bit warmer outside. But inside they've gotten vastly more hospitable, as we live longer, eat better, have more leisure time and have fewer deadly occupations.

— Kill the zombie — Las Vegas Sun EditorialEnough politics; get rid of Yucca Mountain plan once and for all