This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
When a majority of faculty senators voted to have the University of Utah move away from investments in the fossil fuel industry, a weight began to be lifted from Utah's long-standing commitment to the business of extracting fossil fuels from our Earth.
Fossil fuels (coal, tar, oil, etc.), since the start of the industrial revolution, have been burned to release their energy to a great surge of human development — and of pollution. We are now proving that there exists a pollution-free alternative: the combustion far away on our Sun's surface can be harnessed on Earth by direct conversion to electricity via chemistry/wind/water without land demolition or air/water pollution.
Indeed, a great blooming of solar energy panels can already be seen on the roofs of university buildings — and on homes and fields throughout Utah. These are our clean energy future!
Perhaps the contrast between Donald "Drill-Baby-Drill" Trump and "Steward-Our-Earth" Terry Tempest Williams will make the choice clearer to Utahns. We can move away from the muck and towards the clarity of sunlight.
Naomi Franklin
Salt Lake City