Bioneers address green issues
The annual Utah Bioneers Conference was held Oct. 20-22 at USU and attracted participants who were eager to learn and share knowledge of the effects of current trends on the environment.
The conference began Friday and provided guests with a range of workshops from air quality and climate control to transportation, recycling and food security. Students, educators, environmentalists and agriculturists flocked to the convention to hear from nationally acclaimed speakers who have expertise on the latest issues concerning the environment.
According to Cindy Roberts, the chief operating officer for the Cache Valley Chamber of Commerce, bioneers are simply people who are concerned with the future of the environment. She said bioneers are scientists, artists, gardeners, economists, activists, public servants, ecologists, farmers, journalists, policymakers and citizens. They are everyday people committed to preserving and supporting the future of life on Earth, she said.
Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson was a keynote speaker at the third-annual convention. His speech, titled “Effectively Combating Climate Change Together,” was delivered to a full audience at the Logan Tabernacle Friday night.
Anderson, who is an advocate for national clean-air policies, told attendees how the burning of fossil fuels has led to unclean air and to an international public health crisis. Anderson explained that there is a delicate balance of gases in the atmosphere that enable life to inhabit the earth. He said there is a blanket surrounding the earth, which reflects the gases back to the surface and keeps inhabitants warm. The increasing amount of carbon dioxide and methane in the air adds to the atmospheric blanket and leads to dangerous levels of global warmth, he said.
“Carbon dioxide stays in the air for nearly 100 years,” Anderson said. “Oil, coal and other fuels add 21 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the air each year. If this substance stays for a hundred years, our blanket is built up and causes dangerous problems.”
Anderson says emissions must be reduced by 70 percent by the middle of this century for the environment to sustain life for the next century. He said 20 of the 21 warmest years on Earth occurred in the past 25 years, with the average global temperature rising one degree Fahrenheit each year since the Industrial Revolution. Evidence of this, he said, is the diminishing polar ice cap, which has decreased by 20 percent in the last 40 years.
Anderson said since 2005 was the warmest year in the earth’s history, scientists predict a best-case scenario for global warming is that the temperature of the globe will continue to rise only one degree per year. He said scientists forecast a worst-case scenario of the temperature rising four degrees per year and eventually 10 degrees per year in the next century.
“We need to take global warming into our own hands and take advantage of the opportunities and plans that have been laid our by our world leaders to combat this issue,” Anderson said. “Either we delay obstruction and wait for others to take action, or we come together to develop and implement our own plans of action to make our world a better place.”
John Sigler, environmental coordinator for the city of Pocatello, Idaho, attended the conference with his wife, Betty, who said said she joined her husband at the conference because she is interested in sustainability for the future.
“This conference is wonderful,” she said. “I wish everyone could learn the things I have learned. I think it should be mandatory for people worldwide to know the current state and future of our environment.”
Those in charge of planning and hosting the prestigious event said they were proud to be one of 17 locations across America that receives a live satellite feed of the National Bioneers Conference held in California during the same weekend.
The convention produced more than 30 local workshops with northern Utah experts at the Eccles Conference Center and in Vernal and Brigham City Extension sites on a variety of subjects. Next year’s conference will be held in Logan during the month of October. For further information on the conference, contact Jim Goodwin at 435-757-2352.