Utah does better than other states in terms of environmental awareness. We may be a red state that believes mankind is free to burn and pollute at will, but we do also have extreme local pollution that forces people to deal with the consequences of their air-polluting actions. And sometimes this does lead to action - in a limited but foundational way.
For example, I recently purchased a battery-electric lawn mower from the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, through their
CARROT program. (
CARROT:
Clean
Air
Retrofit,
Replacement, and
Off-road
Technology)
It was sort of like a Cash-For-Clunkers program for lawnmowers, where you could bring in your old gas-fired lawnmower (and trimmer) and get a battery-electric one for 75% off the purchase price - which in this case, meant the $400 lawn mowers were $100 (with similar discounts for the trimmers).The old gas-fired equipment was then recycled. It was pretty amazing to drive out to the DEQ (near the 1940 W TRAX station) and see all the cars line up to trade in their old lawn mowers. Recycling dumpsters were filled with old, rusty, oily mechanical lawn mowers, and rows and rows of pallets of new, electric lawn mowers stood ready to be delivered. I didn't have to get out of my car; so many volunteers were there to take the old lawn mower out and put the new one in that they made a rule
not to get out of your car to help. It was just drive up, show your pre-registration and receipt, let the 'pit crew' change out your lawn mower, and drive away, happy in the knowledge that your lawn will no longer be a source of air pollution.
And this is not trivial; according to their website, a lawnmower run for an hour produces as much pollution as a car does over 160+ miles. Smaller engines burn fuel less efficiently as bigger engines, and so while gas-fired lawnmowers use less fuel, they produce even more pollution. This is the same reason that an electric car that is charged from a coal-fired power plant is still significantly less polluting than a gas-fired car. It's economies of scale, energy style.
The CARROT program does other things as well. Their website has links to things like a school bus replacement program. I think that with the proper funding, this type of thing could easily become like New-Zealand's program, where people trade-in their gas-fired cars (to be recycled) and receive electric ones. The program is in place, it just needs to be expanded.
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