Friday, January 15, 2010

Alex Haworth's Smog Lake City

I love this video, and have so much respect for my best friend/film partner/roommate Al:

Smog Lake City: Main Street from Dada Factory on Vimeo.



Such a well done series of shots, showing a part of town that's very familiar to me in a completely different light.

Two days ago we were sitting on the couch at the Dada Factory, talking about new years resolutions. Al says "I'm going to try to step my game up, in general." The next day he goes out and shoots, edits, and posts this. Hells yeah.

As a side note, the tagline for Al's movie was "The carcinogenic soup that fills up Salt Lake City may be shortening our lives, but it sure makes it beautiful." How true. This inversion's been getting to me. I sent in a letter to the Des News, who had recently written an op-ed on how we shouldn't regulate because they're terrified of spending money on anything but god. Of course they didn't publish it, so I might as well post it here:

It was good to see the Deseret News examine our very real relationship to pollution here in SLC. Your editorial “EPA should consider air changes carefully” was thoughtful, noting that our geography in the valley makes this problem pervasive and daunting. I must disagree that the correct conclusion is to approach regulations with fear and hesitance. We must not diminish the seriousness of air quality control simply because smog has been here for a while. I am a local bike messenger, and I often ride between Centerville and downtown Salt Lake. On the day of your op-ed the point of the mountain was chalky white, and the air smelled of stale, burnt chemicals and rotten eggs. You are absolutely correct, fighting this dangerous pollution will be difficult; it will raise the cost of heavy industry and reduce people’s ability to drive all the time. But a blighted, unlivable atmosphere in one of the world’s most beautiful and fun places is a far harder alternative to live with.

The best solution is to get behind the companies and ideas that provide jobs and help repair our damage to the environment. For those who fear that regulations would force say, Tesoro Refineries to lay off half of their employees, those same employees could get their very same jobs in heavy manufacturing, transportation, and marketing at UTA. Public transportation is excellent in Utah and is only going to get better with more people driving less. The result of this kind of priority change is cleaner air and more ecologically responsible jobs. Crystal clear, isn’t it?

Respectfully and Hopefully,
Davey Davis


In lieu printing my letter they printed a garbled rhetorical question about how scientists aren't reporting the facts about Global Warming, how it's all a pack of lies. Gag me.

2 comments:

psychenaut said...

Great letter. The DesNews isn't. I've seen highschool weekly newsletters with better journalism.

This might help explain their actions in regards to your letter:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_A._Cannon

The Kyles said...

Amen! Having asthma in this town makes winter time almost unbearable. Something needs to be done and NOW. The damage to our air is visible, the damage to our lungs is obvious and there are so many things we can do right now. To not print what was obviously a very well thought out letter is just plain lazy and cowardly.

Bye