Access Utah

Serbian inventor Nikola Tesla produced hundreds of inventions and ideas which have changed our lives in profound ways, ranging from alternating current to wireless communication to remote control. Tesla's AC defeated Thomas Edison's DC, but Edison is celebrated in America and Tesla is largely unknown. Where he is remembered, Tesla is known as the man who invented the twentieth century, but also as an early archetype of the mad scientist.

"The Arts and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, & Math) fields share a necessity for undertaking imaginative inquiry of what we perceive as truth and beauty...So many attempts to integrate art and science simply involve creating art at the end of a scientific breakthrough. With ARTsySTEM, we're merging the disciplines at the very inception of the process." That's USU Assistant Professor of Art Mark Lee Koven, who along with USU Ecology Center Director Nancy Huntly, is spearheading the ARTsySTEM project at Utah State University.

Last July 4 on an outing to Long Island, when shots were fired in the vicinity, ProPublica reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones says that "between the four adults [in the group] we hold six degrees. Three of us are journalists. And not one of us ... thought to call the police. We had not even considered it. We also are all black. And without realizing it, in that moment, each of us had made a set of calculations, an instantaneous weighing of the pros and cons." In "A Letter From Black America," (recently published by ProPublica and Politico Magazine) Hannah-Jones says "to a very real extent, you have grown up in a different country than I have."

B. Lynn Ingram is Professor of Earth and Planetary Science and Geography at the University of California, Berkeley and co-author of "The West Without Water: What Past Floods, Droughts, and other Climatic Clues Tell Us About Tomorrow." She'll join us for Tuesday's AU to answer such questions as: What is "normal" climate in the West and how do we know what's normal? What do we learn from megafloods and megadroughts during the past 2,000 years, including most disastrous flood in the history of California and the West, which occurred in 1861-62? Why is climate so variable in the West? What does the past tell us about tomorrow?

"The brain can change itself. It is a plastic, living organ that can actually change its own structure and function, even into old age. Arguably the most important breakthrough in neuroscience since scientists first sketched out the brain's basic anatomy, this revolutionary discovery, called neuroplasticity, promises to overthrow the centuries-old notion that the brain is fixed and unchanging." So says psychiatrist and researcher Norman Doidge, MD.

The 2015 session of the Utah Legislature reached the end of its constitutionally-mandated 45 days Thursday night. This year’s highlights included debates over Medicaid expansion, prison relocation, pay raises for teachers and state employees, the gas tax, anti-discrimination protections for the LGBT community, religious freedom guarantees, the right to die, Utah’s caucus and convention system, medical marijuana, cock fighting and seat belts, among other issues.

HB 391, the “Utah Death with Dignity Act,” would allow physicians to prescribe lethal doses of medication to terminally ill persons, under certain circumstances. Rep. Rebecca Chavez-Houck, D-Salt Lake City says she sponsored the bill in response to the recent plight of Brittany Maynard, a California woman with a terminal brain tumor who moved to Oregon (which has had such a law in place since 1994) so she could die on her own terms. A poll by www.utahpolicy.com shows that 63% of Utahns support such legislation. On Wednesday’s AU we’ll ask you what you think.

We love our dogs and cats, but their behavior can be baffling. (Maybe they have the same thoughts about us!) On Tuesday's AU, our guest is veterinarian Gary Weitzman, President and CEO of the San Diego Humane Society and SPCA, and author of "How to Speak Cat: A Guide to Decoding Cat Language" (published by National Geographic.). Dr. Weitzman is also author of "How to Speak Dog," and "Everything Dogs." We'll answer your dog and cat questions, and talk about the San Diego Humane Society's current effort called "Getting to Zero:" a comprehensive plan to save the life of every healthy and treatable animal in San Diego Animal Welfare Coalition shelters.

Climate change has been a hard sell among some communities of faith. Katharine Hayhoe is a Climate Scientist and an Evangelical Christian. She has spent years trying to convince other Christians that climate change is real. She told NPR that "the people we trust, the people we respect, the people whose values we share, in the conservative community, in the Christian community, those people are telling us, many of them, that this isn't a real problem - that it's a hoax. Even worse, that you can't be a Christian and think that climate change is real. You can't be a conservative and agree with the science." Hayhoe says that caring about climate change is one of the most Christian things you can do.

The Pentagon has said that climate change poses immediate risks to our national security. U.S. intelligence and security leaders predict that resource scarcity will be our next big threat. The World Wildlife Fund's new initiative "In Pursuit of Prosperity" seeks to make sustainability a core component of U.S. foreign policy.WWF says that scarcities in one country can spill over into relations with neighboring countries as governments try to access natural resources-such as timber, water and energy-through legal and illegal means. Tensions among neighbors, ranging from the US.-Mexico border to India and Pakistan, are on the rise. California, America's fruit and food basket, is currently experiencing one of the most severe droughts in over a century. The result is higher food prices and declining water stocks.

The grid is everywhere, sending power to the light switch on the wall and water to the faucet in the kitchen. But is it essential? Must we depend on it and the corporate and government infrastructure behind it? Wednesday’s AU we’ll revisit our conversation, from August, with Nick Rosen, who has traveled the United States, spending time with all kinds of individuals and families striving to live their lives free from dependence on municipal power and amenities, and free from dependence on the government and its far-reaching tentacles.

The firing squad, discontinued in Utah in 2004, would return as a method of execution under a bill (HB11) which has passed Utah's House of Representatives. The sponsor, Rep. Paul Ray R-Clearfield, says (according to the Associated Press) that "a team of trained marksmen is faster and more humane than the drawn-out deaths that have occurred in botched lethal injections." NPR reports that manufacturers of the drugs used in lethal injection executions, under increasing pressure from critics of the practice, have ceased making the toxic chemicals. James Clark writing on Amnesty International USA's "Human Rights Now" blog says this bill makes Utah appear willing to do just about anything to continue executions.

As wildlife populations increase, so does the potential for human-wildlife conflicts, which can be seen in in economic losses, regulatory conflicts, and sometimes, physical encounters. Terry Messmer, Director of the Berryman Institute at USU, says that wildlife managers may need to change their traditional emphasis from sustaining or increasing wildlife populations to mitigating conflicts. On Monday's AU we'll talk about potential effects of listing the Sage-grouse as an endangered species and of delisting the wolf. We'll also consider the phenomenon of urban deer and the management of wild horses and burros. We'll ask you what you think about these issues and we'd also like to know if you've had an encounter with, say, a mountain lion or a bear. Joining the discussion today is Terry Messmer and Michael Wolfe, Emeritus professor of Wildlife Ecology and Management at Utah State University.

State Department of Corrections Executive Director Rollin Cook said Utah's "tough on crime approach" has been costly and has led to mass incarceration, overcrowded prisons and unacceptable recidivism rates. Rep. Eric Hutchings, R-Kearns, said his criminal justice reform bill (HB 348) will result in an "epic shift" in how the state treats offenders.

Every year about this time "Evening in Brazil" presents concerts in Salt Lake City and Logan; this year's concerts are on Thursday and Friday. And each year, we gather members of the musical group in UPR's studio C to enjoy some great Bossa Nova and Samba on Access Utah. Linda Ferreira Linford, Christopher Neale, Mike Christiansen & Eric Nelson will join us for Wednesday's AU and we hope you will too, beginning at 9:00 a.m.

This is an Encore Presentation of Access Utah,which originally aired in September 2014.

The Deseret News reports that opposing bills on Medicaid expansion have passed a state Senate committee. Sen. Allen Christensen says that his SB 153 would cover Utahns who earn up to 100% of the federal poverty level and who are medically frail. He says his plan would leave money available for other needy groups. Sen. Brian Shiozawa’ SB 164 would implement many elements of Governor Herbert’s Healthy Utah plan, which would help provide coverage for those who earn up to 138% of the federal poverty level. Sen. Shiozawa says that Sen. Christensen’s plan would not return enough Utah tax dollars from the federal government to the state.

Oil prices across the nation have dropped dramatically over the past few months. Economists have described the money that consumers are saving as a kind of tax break, but not everyone is seeing green. In a series of reports this month titled “The Costs of Oil,” UPR reporters Elaine Taylor, Justin Prather and Evan Hall have looked into how falling prices are affecting places like eastern Utah, where oil is a major industry.

Amity Shlaes is author of four New York Times bestsellers, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression; The Forgotten Man: Graphic, an illustrated version of the same book drawn by Paul Rivoche; Coolidge, a biography of the thirtieth president; and The Greedy Hand: How Taxes Drive Americas Crazy. Shlaes chairs the board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation.

Our guest for the hour on Wednesday's Access Utah is Jennifer Jacquet, author of the new book "Is Shame Necessary? New Uses for an Old Tool." Robert Sapolsky (author of Monkeyluv) says: "In the age of Anthony Weiner and Miley Cyrus, shame seems an antiquated concept-a quaint tool of conformity-obsessed collectivist societies, replete with scarlet letters and loss of face ..." Jacquet says that in recent years, we as consumers have sought to assuage our guilt about flawed social and environmental practices and policies by, for example, buying organic foods or fair-trade products. Unless nearly everyone participates, however, the impact of individual consumer consciousness is ineffective.