Leavitt addresses environment
The United States and Utah must find a balance between economics and the environment.
That was the focus of Gov. Michael Leavitt’s speech Tuesday in the Taggart Student Center Auditorium. Leavitt addressed what he said is a pressing need to find an economically feasible way to maintain the environment.
“Our goal, in my mind, has to be to get twice the progress at half the cost,” he said. “This nation has both an economic and environmental interest over the course of the next 25 years to 50 years to double the amount of environmental interest we’ve made at half the cost.”
The governor referred to a plan called Enlibra, which is meant to facilitate a move toward balance.
“The purpose of this is not to create a process, but it is to define a philosophy,” Leavitt said. “One of the principles of Enlibra is that if you change a heart, you change a nation.”
He explained the heart of the Enlibra message with a story of his family.
“In our home, we have a sack in the broom closet that has aluminum cans in it,” he said. “We recycle, and we didn’t before our children learned in elementary school that it’s wasteful and irresponsible to not recycle.”
People will debate what the right thing is, Leavitt said, but the right thing clearly involves conservation and avoids overconsumption.
“We need national standards, but we also need neighborhood solutions,” he said. “If you prescribe the standard to such a level of granularity that you’re controlling the water policy in every town, village and hamlet in America, you’re taking away the capacity to find a neighborhood solution.”
The governor said Enlibra is not simply an environmental issue but an environmental and economic issue.
He referred to a trip he made to China, where he discussed global warming with the country’s chief scientist. He said it was made very clear to him that China is a nation of 1.2 billion people and they are creating substantially less pollution per person.
“He told me that it’s easy for your nation to say you want to clean up the air, you’ve got an economy,” Leavitt said. “What that told me was that we’re operating in a world where China is worried about their economic equation.”
Leavitt suggested three areas America could use to define its capacity to not only clean up the environment, but to compete economically in a global marketplace.
He said the Social Security system, the general area of homeland security and environmental costs are the three areas the country needs to focus on. The United States is heading into a future where it will compete with the Chinese and other countries in the world that don’t have the load of issues like Social Security.
“Many of you who are our children, how much of your payroll are you willing to devote to my retirement?” Leavitt asked. “Our societal calculus is going to have to change.
“This is not simply about our stewardship to the Earth; it’s about our capacity to eat and prosper, as well.”
Steve Huckett, a graduate student in the College of Natural Resources, said he liked Leavitt’s Enlibra plan but thought the governor came across as a true politician in his speech.
“I thought it was interesting. He had some thought-provoking ideas, but he’s a politician,” Huckett said. “I think the Enlibra plan is kind of an innovative idea, not necessarily new, but one that needs to be put in place.”
Huckett said he thought Leavitt’s talk of economics was just rhetoric and simple politics.
“He proved to be a true politician in there,” he said.
Leavitt addressed questions from the crowd after the conclusion of his speech and received inquiries on issues from recycling and water conservation to growth and vehicles.
Kent Andersen, president of Utah State University’s Society and Natural Resources Club, asked the governor about the wolves that were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park and have migrated to Utah. Andersen said he was less than satisfied with the response from the governor to his question.
“I didn’t get an answer at all,” he said. “It made me feel kind of sad, because Utah still doesn’t have an answer to the wolf problem.”
Andersen said he thought Leavitt’s speech was well done and said the governor did a good job of covering all the issues, but he wished for more of an answer to his query.
“I think they’re going to have to come up with an answer, because wolves — obviously they didn’t think they were going to come down the first time. What are they going to do when they kill a cow?” he said.
The governor did not have an answer for Andersen’s question.
“What’s happened with wolves is we have reintroduced a species, and it’s now migrating,” Leavitt said. “I don’t really know the answer to that, and I’m not going to deal with it other than what I have today.”
Aside from his own question, Andersen said he was impressed with how Leavitt spent nearly 30 minutes entertaining questions from the crowd.
Leavitt said there have been ups and downs as far as man’s interaction with the environment goes, but overall, man has a responsibility to the planet.
“There have been times we have done a good job and times we have done a lousy job,” he said. “I personally believe that man has the responsibility to be good stewards over the Earth.”
A responsibility that Leavitt said can be fulfilled with Enlibra.
For more information on Enlibra, visit http://www.westgov.org/wga/initiatives/enlibra/default.htm.
–str@cc.usu.edu