The masses are excited for fall and winter. I, too, cherish the colors and the smells of fall and winter. But still, I can’t help but feel solemn, already worn down. Fall and winter are surely coming, as seen not by the curling leaves or dropping temperatures, but in the toxic, suffocating green plume that rises with every passing of a motorist, with every drooping level on Kennecott’s mountainside.
There’s something about pain that a person can so easily forget. In fact, our mind routinely forgets pain. You can recall a past painful event with ease, but the truest sensation of the pain felt is vitiated from your senses entirely, leaving only vague phantoms of feelings associated with such pains. This is my attempt at inciting everyone’s initial recollection of past winters—hopefully their anger, too.
We easily forget about Salt Lake County’s abysmal air quality (deadly to some, rheumatic to everyone else) and the forces needed to correct this environmental disgrace. Only the most passionate or indignant of us stand strong, carrying on the fight for our environment and communities; the rest forget the many times they had to cough up their own city’s air after a walk from their parked car to the office door.
We tend to become complacent, forever tuned out of our pasts’ troubles and cyclic worries. If only we remembered, stayed angry and fought for our health. Instead, we anticipate, indulge and grudgingly complain like clockwork every year about our (increasing) environmental impacts. Air should be breathed, not eaten.
Let’s cause a stir now, before the perma-haze returns. Let’s cause a stir, if not for us this season, then for our future seasons and future health. There is a reason why we have a recorded historical record for just about everything you can think of; we must learn and grow from our past, not forget it.
Glen Simister
Salt Lake City