University of Utah Student Newspapers | 2007-11-20 | Page 6

6 Tuesday, November 20,2007 OPINION www.dailyutahchronicle.com ASUU candidates: give us less paper, more breakfast! Student elections need a change T ake a deep breath during your next walk through the Union—do you smell that? It's the smell of potential candidates resigning their positions with the Associated Students of the University of Utah to UANl become Climate change is real 77ze /or debate is over—we need solutions now F orget the latest offering from Stephen King. You want to feel real horror? Curl up with a hot cup of tea and a copy of Climate Change and Utah: The Scientific Consensus. It reports the findings of a study on climate change conducted by a panel of local scientists and was recently presented to Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.*s advisory council on the subject... . i^> .s I won't recite the litany of disasters predicted this time around. There's been a lot of coverage of the-detailst- -—They're basically the same in every report on climate change that comes out. The big difference in this region, according to the Utah report, will be in the severity of the effects. It's predicted they will be worse here. So including this one, the tally of credible academic studies sounding the alarm on climate change is now well into the hundreds. By credible, I mean rigorously researched and peerreviewed, with protocols in plaqe to eliminate political influence. The tally of the same type of credible studies finding that everything is just fine is exactly zero. Of course, reports and studies are impressive—but not really necessary to understand what is happening. Did anyone spend any time outside this summer? I did. I was outside a lot during the three solid months of iodegrees-above-normal temperatures, DAVID SERVATIUS 1 .. .which resulted in the hottest summer ever recorded in the state. Was anyone planning on going skiing this past big *-opening*weekend? How'd that work out? Folks, it's clearly time to declare that the debate over the existence of climate change is over. There are no longer two reasonable sides to this issue, and trying to pretend that there are only wastes valuable resources. It's long past time for the discussion about solutions to get underway. Those who persist in calling climate change a convenient myth or junk science should not be allowed to participate in this discussion. When they try, they should be met with ridicule. At this point, anyone denying the existence of climate change either has a vested financial interest in the status quo or is simply not educated enough to think for him or herself. Such ideas should no longer get one bit of air time, news space or credibility. Think about it. When there is a story in the media about the Holocaust, is there ever anything in that story about the views of people who deny that it happened? Do we see a split screen on CNN with a rabbi on one side and Mel Gibson and his dad on the other? If an airplane mysteriously drops out of the sky and crashes into a populated urban area, do we include equal space in the local paper examining the point o£ view-of those who are not yet convinced of the law of gravity? If there is coveragcofa solar eclipse on television, do we spend time hearing a competing description of what is happening onscreen from people who still believe that the sun revolves around the earth? When there is a report released on smoking deaths with more evidence that smoking causes lung cancer, does media coverage of that report seek out and include the views of tobacco industry experts who swear that the habit is actually a healthy . one? No. If what is described in each of these cases were to actually happen, it would be pure comedy. This is the company to which people who deny the existence of climate change belong. It is time to sweep them and their discredited views into the wastebin of history. letters@ chronicle.utah.edu KAUERZ eligible to run for office in our next student government elections. It is the time of year when the people who wUl be driving us absolutely insane during elections at the U begin taking the steps necessary to run for office. Although I would love to suggest that the people on campus who are least likely to annoy me during my brisk walks from class to class should run for office (an impossibility, I'm sure), I have an even better idea. Why doesn't someone who's unlike the stereotypical ASUU candidate give it a shot and campaign a different way that does not irritate the majority of students and create a crazy amount of wasted paper? Contrary to popular belief at the U, you don't have to be a Sigma Chi to be student body president. You don't even have to be in a fraternity. And to go even further (I know, it's hard to stretch our thinking this far), you don't have to be a dude. Believe it or not, you don't even have to be a member of Greek Row. That's *rfght, it is possible that the next president of ASUU could -be a-woman who is not in a sorority. While I am more than content with the work being done by ASUU with the help of President Spencer Pearson and Vice President Basim Motiwala this year, I think it is time for a different kind of student body president and a different kind of race to the office. Every year, when elections are near, we are flooded with an obscene amount of material to get our attention—papers handed to us between every single class from each different party, pictures from floor to ceiling in every building (especially OSH) and signs at every turn on our campus. While I am sure every last piece of propaganda is made from recycled paper and makes it into a recycling bin when elections are over (read: dripping with sarcasm), what happens to those huge signs with the candidates' faces on them? I mean, I'm sure the winners take them home to their parents' house where they will reside atop a mantel until their term in office is complete. But what do the losers do? Trash them? So much waste created for a relatively small, short university election. Why can't the ASUU elections adopt a new, improved, paperless policy? I propose we have all the information that is usually on the papers being handed out and the mug shot posters put on a website. Put all of the links on the ASUU website and then have each candidate put a link on their Facebook and MySpace profiles (tell me one time that you've walked into a room full of computers and college students and those sites aren't on the majority of screens). The sites will be seen, information will spread and you can have as many pictures of your face as you would like without wasting any paper. Continue to produce and wear T-shirts around campus, as those are incredibly reusable (I see them all the time at the field house, winning and losing shirts both) and give h ll Certainly continue to pass out free food. We all know the way to a starving^tu u ' " dent's heart and vote is right through his or her stomachs. Best yet, if you're passing out food more often (with the budget you saved by not using all that wasteful paper), you won't have to stop students at every bend in the sidewalk—they will be stopping by for their morning breakfast or afternoon snack anyway, having read on your website that you would be passing out bagels and coffee. near the library. Less waste, more breakfast! So come on, yet-to-benamed non-Greek female candidate! Step up to the challenge and create a campaign that we can all be proud of! letters@ chronicle.utah.edu Animal abuse in Utah still needs some serious attention B odies were hurled from bridges as high as five stories and crushed upon impact as they fell on top of other rotting bodies in'mass graves. Live beings were tied up in sacks and drowned, burned, driven over or beaten to death. Some were told their sick loved ones would receive euthanasia and die peacefully. In actuality, some died slow, torturous deaths, buried alive. With what I've described thus far, you're probably thinking that I must be referring to the Holocaust of the WWII era. Unfortunately, I'm not. I'm referring to a more recent event—the Puerto Rican pet holocaust. I don't believe I've ever been as appalled as I was when I read descriptions of what some animals in Puerto Rico were put through before they painfully met their ends. I honestly became physically ill just reading and thinking about it. I became even sicker when I imagined that any of those pets could have been my own. As horrific as these slaughters are, they're regrettably the rule rather than the exception in Puerto Rico, a U.S. Commonwealth—a pseudostate with some of the same rights but fewer rights overall. Puerto Rico is not renowned for its care or kindness for animals. Exemplifying this are Puerto Rico's legal cockfights, its lack of comprehensive spay/neuter programs and what is known as "Dead Dog Beach," where local teens usually torture and kill animals for "fun" before dumping their carcasses there. Some claim that Animal Control Solutions, a taxpayer-financed government contractor that Puerto Rico hired to handle the disposal of sick and dead pets, is the entity to blame for this holocaust, as it has purportedly brutally killed as many as i.ooo pets daily and "discarded their corpses wherever it was convenient" via methods I previously described, according to The Associated Press. Animal Control Huntsman Jr. courageously tried to right this wrong with the attempted passage of the bill known as Henry's law (which would have made animal torture punishable as a felony under some circumstances), the bill failed to become law last session and special session. Utah is one of only seven states that does not allow felony punishment of animal abusers. Puerto Rico is not a U.S. state and is therefore subject to different laws than a state like Utah is. But even in Puerto Rico, animal abuse is punishable as a felony under their animal cruelty law 439.1 find it ridiculous that a U.S. state essentially condones animal abuse by not punishing it as a felony while Puerto Rico, one of the animal abuse and torture centers of the world, does. Situations like this make me wish the government believed in the eye for an eye principle as a supplementing force along with felony protections and legislation. If animal abusers want to drive over puppies until ANASTASIA NlEDRICH Solutions is now under investigation and is being sued for $22.5 million dollars. Although tragic, reprehensible, abhorrent, horrendous and grand in scale, animal atrocities of this magnitude are rare. What are all too common, though, are animal abuse, neglect, torture and suffering that surround us every day—yes, even here in the good ol' USA, including the Beehive State. In fact, the Animal Legal Defense Fund recently named Utah as the nation's worst state for protecting animals from events similar to the Puerto Rican pet holocaust. Although some members of the Utah Legislature and Gov. Jon they're dead, they should be prepared to be driven over themselves. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Right now, our furry friends are being done a grave injustice in Utah as well as Puerto • Rico. I can only hope that those who perpetrated these egregious, inhumane and immoral acts against pets in Puerto Rico are brought to justice by Puerto Rico's courts and legal system—while those who would seek to do the same in Utah are held accountable as well. Events like this happen everywhere, every day. Such events serve as examples of some of the many reasons that Utah should provide for felony prosecution and punishment for people who choose to harm Utah's most vulnerable residents—pets. The next time Henry's law comes up for passage, I hope we all have a more supportive perspective. letters@ chronicle.utah.edu Bi hearfe The Daily Utah Chronicleis Mring opinion writers. ^^WfWFqr^nore information, contact Lindsey Sine at [e-mail]. u .-.