Slow down, people breathing...

Outside a small town in Montana, beside a dirt road, is a sign that says "Slow down, people breathing."
I could say the same thing about the forest fires plaguing the west, although the firefighters involved I'm sure are doing all they can to not just slow them, but stop them.
It's only a matter of time. I feel badly for those who live nearby, especially those who have lost their home, land, and in extreme cases, the few loved ones who have perished because of the fires.
Here in Utah, all we have to deal with is a little smoke in the air. Then again, smoke in the air, trapped by ridges of high pressure, is what causes our inversions in the winter. We do have those in the summer too, but because there isn't a lot of cold air, we don't normally see the pollutants we're breathing in. We hear from time to time news announcements not to use our lawn mowers and things like that, and that's usually how we find out about poor air quality in the summer in the Salt Lake Valley.
 For the past week or so though, it has been highly visible as smoke from our neighbors to the west builds up and is trapped in our valley. Here are some images I took yesterday.

Looking toward the Wasatch Mountains from just west of I-215

A look at the Oquirrhs from 56th West

Looking at the Wasatch from 56th West, not even visible.

We are hopeful that the firefighters will soon get these blazes under control, not only for the lungs of those of us living in the Salt Lake Valley, but for the homes, livelihoods, and lives of those in our neighboring states, California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and others who are threatened by these destructive fires.

Going green: The EPA, Animas River, and Ikea

On August 5th, the EPA inadvertently released over a million gallons of contaminated mine water into the Animas River, causing the PH to lower, threatening fish and other wildlife--in addition to farmers--all along the waterway which eventually flows into the San Juan River and the Colorado.
The EPA during the Obama Administration has been a bunch of clowns who are basically dictating, with no Congressional approval, a plethora of strict regulations designed to protect the environment. These folks tour the country looking for someone to fine for undue greenhouse emissions or other "violations" of greenhood. Prior to this incident, they've potentially caused billions of dollars in job loss for thousands of people by restricting development of fossil fuels etc. Now, they are causing perhaps millions of dollars in loss of income for people who depend upon the Animas and the San Juan for their livings, including many miles of the Navajo Reservation. The Navajo Nation is understandably, up in arms.

We cannot fine them--it would just come out of the tax payer's pockets. The cost for the cleanup alone will be in the millions, if not billions, of dollars. So what can be done to punish those responsible for this potential ecological disaster? Fire them. Since they get their marching orders from the man at the top--President Obama--he should be fired too. Corrupt crooks only understand one thing and that's losing their jobs over the mistakes they've made.
So what does this have to do with Ikea. Not much except for the hypocrisy behind the "green" movement. Ikea, which doesn't even provide shopping bags that you can take home with you (unless you purchase one), in the name of keeping plastic grocery bags out of the landfill, sends out millions of half inch thick catalogs each year. For the amount of paper used in the creation of these things, they would have to kill an entire forest. Now that's really being green.
I'm all for protecting the environment, but there needs to be some kind of balance. People's lives  and livelihoods shouldn't be compromised in sketchy schemes that supposedly will stop global warming.