It’s All Hallow’s Eve Eve and to celebrate, here’s some candy, I mean, ecoright climate news.
Hail the mayors! We have another Republican mayor to add to our All Star list. Mayor R. Rex Parris of Lancaster, California transformed his city from one plagued by high unemployment and home foreclosures to a leader in solar energy production. “Up until then, I believed the Republican mantra that this [climate change] is just a Chinese plot,” he said, while highlighting that after construction of a solar thermal plant and the accompanying shift toward renewable energy, the city saw unemployment decrease from 17 percent to four percent, electricity bills dropped three to 15 percent, and today Lancaster leads California in per capita solar energy generation. According to Parris, Lancaster produces more kilowatts of solar energy than the city uses in 10 years. “It just makes sense,” the mayor says, adding solar energy helps “mitigate climate disruption on a much larger scale.”
Bee Hive State believes: According to a recent poll taken by the Salt Lake City Tribune and the University of Utah’s Hinckley School of Politics, a majority of Utahns accept the science of climate change. Fully 71 percent say it’s “real” while 64 percent believe climate change is exacerbated by human activity. According to Rep. Mia Love, the only member of the Utah Congressional Delegation to be a member of the House Climate Solutions Caucus, “It’s our responsibility to do everything we can to make sure that our children are not just inheriting an economically viable country, but an environmentally viable one.”
Bonus candy for photographic evidence of trick or treaters dressed as Scott Pruitt! Or at least, an honorable mention in these pages.