Thursday, February 16, 2023

The Not So Great Salt Lake

I was just reading an article about the coming demise of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. It has shrunk to a shadow of its former glory, and it is threatening the entire state. Partly, it is the loss of water in one of the driest states in the nation. But partly, the residue left behind as the lake shrinks is apparently filled with potentially poisonous debris. Apparently arsenic, mercury and lead line the desiccated lake bed, and those toxins are being picked up by winds, creating clouds of polluted air that threaten all who live even remotely close to the lake. The entire state is at risk.

Exactly what a solution would look like seems unclear at the moment. Water drainage from the lake (mostly agricultural) from farmers and increasingly from the state’s growing population continues to threaten this formerly huge body of water.  Some reduction is vital, but how and when are questions not open to easy answers.

The retreat of The Great Salt Lake is sometimes compared to the drying up of Lake Owens in California, producing one the largest sources of air pollution in the country. But in fact, the Salt Lake is more akin to the loss of The Aral Sea, straddling Israel and Jordan. That sea was largely killed off by the Soviets via irrigation projects.

The main issue in Utah is the likely air pollution that may infect much of the state’s population.  Perhaps the state, and in fact the Nation may move to somehow resolve the current dangers, but, given our record, a successful solution seems unlikely. I am thinking of Climate Change of course. We have known of the need to act for at least 50 years, yet we seem incapable of useful solutions, even though those solutions are staring at us in our collective faces. The solutions to climate change, now likely beyond our grasp were available had we acted. But we didn’t. Instead, we dithered and allowed political shouting matches to substitute for serious adult actions. So, now it may well be too late.

And then, I was just reading in a newsletter called Nautilus about the possibility of humans turning into dinosaurs—remember them? Yeah, they disappeared some 60+ million years ago, due to the after-effects of a rather large meteor striking Earth. It was a pretty big dude as meteors go—several miles wide.  And No, the authors are not predicting a similar event. They are merely speculating that such an event is at least possible, given the amount of crap continually wandering about in our galaxy, and sometimes striking home.  So, they speculate that it is at least possible we might encounter a meteor akin to the one that did in the dinosaurs. If so, we would be screwed, much like the Dinies. What they are suggesting is that, unlike Climate Change where we mostly suck our thumbs and argue amongst ourselves, that we actually begin preparing for such an event, by figuring out ways to avoid it.

Now you and I will likely not be a direct part of such an effort. Much like Climate Change, and even the cataclysmic Great Salt Lake event, most of us don’t get to participate in avoidance of such things. But also, like World Wars, we can at least participate from afar. How? Well, by voting of course.

We seem to have two kinds of people in our once Great Nation—folks who read, and therefor think, and folks who prefer to allow Fox News to do their thinking.  And we all know what Fox News does to brain cells. Ugh.  So, for the folks who still consider themselves thinking creatures, regardless of which side of the political aisle you inhabit, it really is vital to become involved politically. At a minimum, register to vote. And then, when it is time, actually go to the polls and cast your vote for those persons who are more likely to be treating such issues as Climate Change, or meteor-prevention seriously. See individually, we are not big enough to have any effect. But collectively, we can act with intelligence to keep our planet reasonably healthy. But we must read, and we must think. And then we must act through our elected representatives to act collectively as an intelligent force for good.

Do it folks.  Otherwise, we might follow the Dinies. And we really do not want that. So Do It!

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