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Show A-10 OPEN FOR LUNCH CELEBRATING OVER 54 YEARS OF BUSINESS IN PARK CITY RED BANJO 50% OFF ANY SINGLE PIZZA M The Park Record ountain town news A Roundup of News from Other Western Ski Resort Communities What we need to stave off the next recurring ice age By Allen Best Mountain Town News Valid on dine in, to go. Must present coupon at time of order. Expires November 23rd, 2016 322 MAIN ST., HISTORIC PARK CITY 435.649.9901• redbanjopizza.com new party room seats up to 40! Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, November 19-22, 2016 Aside from all the election hot air, it’s been another hot year for the planet. Through August, it was the warmest ever for the globe since recordkeeping began in 1880, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. As of October, carbon dioxide levels in the troposphere were 401 parts per million on the Hawaiian mountain of Mauna Loa, up 3 ppm from the same month last year—and up from 280 ppm when industrialization began. Climate scientists say we’re likely to encounter real trouble when concentrations hit 450, if not before. At our current rate of emissions, we’ll reach that point of screeching sirens by 2040. Incredibly, almost nothing was said about this during the presidential campaigns. Donald Trump dismissed global warming as a Chinese hoax. Hillary Clinton addressed it in her policy proposals but, upon reviewing polling data, according to e-mails uncovered by Wikileaks, she refused to embrace the one policy that economists and most activists agree is vitally needed: a price on carbon emissions. Pollution cannot occur without a cost. British Columbia already has a price of $30 per metric ton of emissions, which may be too little to effect change. Alberta has an even smaller one. Washington state voters last week rejected such a carbon tax. Opposition came from unexpected sources. Many green activists, including those from minority and environmental justice organizations argued that impacts of the tax would fall disproportionately on those of low income, which tend to be racial minorities. Van Jones, an African-American green activist, Princeton professor, and CNN commentator, opposed the proposed carbon tax. “I have never opposed a single climate bill proposal, but I am opposing this one, because it is that bad,” he said on a telephone press conference before the election. “It is just that bad.” The Washington state case may provide a sneak preview of the challenge Citizens’ Climate Lobby faces in its work to create a coalition in support of a national carbon tax. This past week, after the election, the group had a webinar featuring Katharine Hayhoe, a prominent climate scientist. Originally from Canada, she now works at Texas Tech. In the webinar, Hayhoe was hopeful, despite the election. She pointed to her work with cities, where 70 percent of the world’s people live. Many cities are now working hard to adopt policies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. States, too, are taking action. And even in China, India, and parts of Africa, there is surprising progress, she said. Largely missing is federal action in the United States. “We don’t need any more new studies to tell us what we need to know, which is that we need a price on carbon and we need the Paris agreement to succeed,” she said. Without the intervention of humans, the Earth’s surface temperature would be slowly declining into another ice age, as has happened periodically for the last two million years. The energy from the sun hitting the earth has actually declined in the last four years, despite the increasing temperatures. “If it weren’t for the human blanket of greenhouse gases that we’re wrapping around the globe, our planet would be slowly cooling,” she said. The warming now being measured is, she said, 100 percent human caused. We might need the fossil fuels some day, she said, to stave off the next ice age. But we don’t need the carbon dioxide now. It’s rapidly pushing us in the wrong direction. What new presidency means for ski towns Clinton-favoring mountain valleys last week were asking what the Trump presidency means for everything from public lands to Obamacare to immigration. As has been their predilection, resort mountain valleys in Colorado tilted hard toward Democrats. Nearly 70 percent of voters in Pitkin and San Miguel (Aspen and Telluride) counties voted for Hillary Clinton. That’s just a tad less than in Colorado’s most liberal county, Boulder. Several of the counties—including those where Breckenridge, Vail, Crested Butte, and Steamboat are located—delivered between 50 and 60 percent of votes to Clinton. Only a few—Grand (Winter Park) and Chaffee (Monarch)—gave a plurality of votes to Donald Trump. If there was any real departure from usual, it was the fairly strong showing of Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson, who snagged 6.1 percent in Summit County (Breckenridge) and 5.9 percent in La Plata (Durango) County. Now that he can call in his kids and rent a U-Haul for the move south to D.C., what will Trump do? In an interview with the Telluride Daily Planet, Dan Jansen, the mayor of Mountain Village, suggested Trump has a greater challenge than the road to the White House “I found that campaigning is easy, but it’s governing that’s more challenging,” he said. Mountain Village is the slope-side municipality at Telluride. Elsewhere in mountain valleys, there were tears born of anxiety. “I think it’s scary right now, and I’m worried about kids as young as third grade coming to school crying about whether or not their friends are going to be deported,” Silverthorne resident Karin Mitchell told the Summit Daily News. West on Interstate 70 in Glenwood Springs, there were tears as well at the Literacy Outreach office. The non-profit works with a wide swath of the Latino community in the Roaring Fork Valley, the Aspen Daily News explained. “They’re terrified,” said Martha Fredendall in reporting children who didn’t want to go to school. “Even those who are here legally are nervous.” Chis Pooley, who practices immigration law in Glenwood Springs and the Vail Valley, Please see Mt. Town, A-14 FIDDICH GLEN 6618 Glenwild Drive, Park City New Townhomes For Quick Move In Pricing From $533,900 ONLY 4 REMAINING Hamlet Homes’ new attractively designed 3 bedroom 3.5 baths situated just outside the entrance to Glenwild Golf Club and Spa in Park City, UT. Fiddich Glen offers an ideal location for outdoor enthusiasts who want to enjoy a beautiful home as well as the convenience of nearby, worldclass ski resorts and Park City’s abundance of winter and summer recreation opportunities. 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