As the air across the valley thickens with toxins for another winter, Republican Gov. Gary Herbert is attempting to thread the needle of addressing Utah’s poor air quality while simultaneously trying not to rock the boat of his very own political party — a party in which over half of the members don’t even believe in man-made global warming.
In a recent survey of registered voters by Dan Jones & Associates, Jones found that “53 percent of those who said they belong to the Republican Party say human activity is not responsible for the rising Earth temperatures.” Although one could point to the progress being made in that the right is finally acknowledging that climate change is happening, it may be more appropriate, and even more beneficial to the future of science, to look back and bring up an older frustration as to why that progress was delayed so: the term “global warming.