I would like to thank our June speaker, Karrie Galloway, CEO of Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, for her presentation. The information about the state of reproductive rights was quite enlightening and we hope to have her back in the future.

At the June board meeting, we discussed the traditionally poor participation in Humanists of Utah events during the month of June. The board decided to make June a month without a Humanists of Utah event, other than the publication and distribution of the newsletter. June has never been the best in terms of attendance for either the General Meeting or the Discussion Group. In the many years I have been going to the discussion group regularly, the latest showing had the fewest attendees yet--just three of us. We hope that this change will be reviewed positively

I would like to take this opportunity to make a few comments about the environment and in particular, the recent discussions regarding the existence of global warming.

I'm sure that you are all aware of this controversy. Environmentalists, with the backing of many scientists, say it is a problem that needs our immediate attention. On the other side, a considerable effort is being made (mostly by conservatives and corporate spin doctors) to discredit the very notion of such an occurrence. It is my belief that the ongoing argument occupies us to the point of keeping us from working on and discussing the more important issues of the environment altogether.

Those of us concerned with environmental issues have unknowingly allowed our opponents to gain the upper hand when we fall in to the trap of trying to defend the proposition that global warming exists; the end result being the perception that until it is proven to exist, we don't need to do much of anything.

I feel that arguing over whether global warming exists detracts from asking the more important questions: "Why do we allow any pollution, period? Why have we allowed entities that pollute to just go ahead (with a few weak regulations) and do as they please?"

The common man cannot do this sort of thing. For example, say I decide that I don't like paying water and sewer charges. So I run a pipe out to the gutter and start flushing out to the street. My neighbors and the government would put a stop to that in a hurry, and rightly so. But you can also bet that the powers that be would not say "we'll only make you reduce it by half, as we don't want you to have too much of a hardship complying with the law." Yet this is exactly what the entities and industries destroying the environment are told every day.

I realize that all pollution isn't going away anytime soon. But we can reduce it considerably if we choose to. But it ain't gonna be cheap or easy.

--Robert Lane
President, HoU