SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2018 DESERETNEWS.COMSALT LAKE CITY, UTAH

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INDEXHIGH: 43 LOW: 25VOL. 169 / NO. 158

N. OGDEN MAYOR:‘A TRUE PATRIOT’

NATIONAL GUARD MAJOR

KILLED IN AFGHANISTAN

EULOGIZED AS ‘THE

BEST OF ALL OF US’

LOCAL B1

UTES, COUGARS,AGGIES WIN

UTAH AND USU KEEP

DIVISION TITLE

HOPES ALIVE; BYU

ROLLS OVER N.M.

STATE IN LATE GAME

SPORTS D1, 4

Winter is comingand so is bad air

What psychology can teach usabout fixing Utah’s air quality problem

His commute from SaltLake to Lehi — bus to TRAXto Frontrunner — takes anhour and a half. On the way

there, he catches up on emailor writes in his journal.On the way home, he readsbooks.

Every now and then, hestops to answer questionsabout his mask.It’s a black mouth-and-nose

covering that he wears onbad air days, with an activat-ed charcoal filter and one-way valves, so breath goesout and clean air comes in.“Once you go outside for a

walk on an inversion day andyour throat starts to burn,you realize the air is poison,”said Weidmann. “SometimesI get looks, but when thedays are really gross, peoplewill say, ‘Cool mask, wheredid you get that?’ ”

QILING WANG, DESERET NEWS

Max, Rob and Sophie Weidmann pose for a photograph with their air pollution masks on at their home in Salt Lake City.

EDITOR’S NOTE:This is the second in a series of

reports leading into the winter

temperature inversion season.

With the support of a grant from

the Solutions Journalism Net-

work, our reporters spent months

looking for answers to Utah’s air

pollution problem.

SPECIAL REPORT

· BY ERICA EVANSDESERET NEWS

SALT LAKE CITY —

Some studies say it takes 28 days to

form a habit, others say 66 days.

Rob Weidmann, 40, has been taking

public transportation to work for

10 years. Doing so has become automatic,

like brushing his teeth or looking both ways

before he crosses a street.

POLLUTION A8

· BY AMY JOI O’DONOGHUEDESERET NEWS

SALT LAKE CITY—This year has been one ofthe most devastating fire seasons in the West,with dozens of fatalities, hundreds of peoplemissing and one of Utah’s own firefighterskilled in a California blaze.Unhealthy forests in desperate need of

vegetation treatment are one of the culprits,with the U.S. Forest Service buckling underthe weight of unfunded projects to clear deadstrands of trees, kill invasive species and thinovergrowth.

Dave Whit-tekiend, theforest super-visor of theUinta-Wasatch-Cache NationalForest, briefeda group oflawmakers lastweek on theU.S. ForestService’sparticipationin the “MillionAcre Chal-lenge” to treata million acresby 2022 inUtah.The agency

is workingwith the UtahDepartmentof NaturalResources andother partnersinvolved inthe WesternWatershed Ini-tiative, whichsince 2006has treatedmore than 1.6million acres inthe state.He admitted

the accelerated time frame to treat a millionacres in just four years will be a tough haul.“For us it is stretching beyond what we have

ever done before,” Whittekiend told membersof the Commission for the Stewardship ofPublic Lands.“We want to minimize the effect of wildfires

on the people in the state of Utah. We will bepushing hard on this Million Acre Challenge.”Whittekiend says the Forest Service wants

to be an active partner in Utah Gov. Gary Her-bert’s push to create 25,000 jobs in rural Utah.

Forestvegetationneeds inUtah

1.3million acres

ready to be treated

$250an acre

$340million total cost

SOURCE: U.S. Forest Service IMAGE: Shutterstock

Wildfires,unhealthyforestsand few $$

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A8 DESERET NEWS SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2018

At first glance, other thanthe mask (and his blue hair),nothing about Weidmann, orhis decision to commute anhour and a half to work, isremarkable. But in truth, he ispart of a small percentage ofUtahns — between 2 percentand 3 percent statewide —who regularly take publictransportation. The logicbehind his decision-makingmay be the key to solving oneof the most vexing problemsalong the Wasatch Front: howto clean the smoggy air thathovers over the valley duringthe winter.While the causes of Utah’s

bad air quality are many, andthe solutions are complicated,the most straightforward fix,experts say, is to get individ-uals to change their pollutinghabits.“Each car … home, busi-

ness, every time we cook ahamburger, that’s a source ofemissions,” said Bryce Bird,director of Utah’s Divisionof Air Quality. “The biggestchallenge we have right nowis identifying these small, di-verse sources of air pollutionand controlling them.”But influencing individuals’

habits is easier said thandone, and the reason why liesin behavioral psychology.Learning facts (fewer cars

on the road leads to cleanerair) or even knowing rightfrom wrong (burning wood onred air days can make thingsworse for neighbors with asth-ma) doesn’t change behavior,psychologists said. Breakinghabits or forming new ones re-quires not just knowledge butemotional and environmentalinfluences as well.Weidmann, for example,

doesn’t just know dirty air isbad for him. Weidmann’s dadwas a respiratory therapistand when Weidmann was akid, he saw firsthand howcontaminants can damage aperson’s lungs by playing withhealthy and unhealthy lungsamples, sealed in plastic,that his dad kept on a sag-ging bookshelf in his office.Weidmann has also calculatedthat taking public transit ischeaper than maintaining asecond car for his family, andhe likes using the extra timeto catch up on small tasks ordestress after a busy day.“Most of us think if you

persuade someone thatsomething is the right thing,they will therefore adopt thebehavior. But that’s not thecase,” said Joseph Grenny, a

social scientist and author ofthe book “Influencer.” Whenit comes to a big problem likeUtah’s air quality, people tendto think, “how does it make adifference when I am just oneamong many?”

An experimentI first met Weidmann on the

bus in August. For severalmonths, I’d been reportingon Utah’s clean air problemand trying to find a solution.I studied how cities like Oslo,Norway, have made their aircleaner, and I looked intowhat Utah has tried, what hasworked, and what the biggestobstacles are to real change. Iconcluded there aren’t enoughpeople like Weidmann. AndI concluded that if I reallywanted to see change, I hadto start with myself.So I decided to go without

a car for one week. It wasn’teasy. Trips on public transittook about three times longerthan driving. And more thanonce, I had to walk threemiles home (alone, at night)because the buses didn’trun when or where I neededthem to. At the same time, Ilearned that there are a lot ofpublic transit options duringcommute times, and gettingto and from work was easierthan I thought. Biking wasn’tbad either. In fact, it was anice way to get myself outsideand moving in the morning.Already, in an effort to make

green transportation moreconvenient, Salt Lake City hasbuilt bike lanes on more thanhalf of its major roads. Buslines and TRAX connect allover the city. And city officialsare thinking ahead with masstransit and cycling plans thatwill make getting around even

easier. But critics say plannedchanges aren’t happening fastenough. The city’s transit mas-ter plan would give us busesthat come every 15 minutesalong major roads, like StateStreet and 900 East, so peopledon’t have to plan ahead, andbetter night and weekend ser-vice, to help people get homesafely from a late shift. Butthat plan will be implementedover the next 20 years. Andbicycle lanes typically only getput in when it’s time for a roadto be repaved.“There are roads in SLC

that haven’t been redone in10 plus years. How long doyou have to wait?” said PhilSarnoff, executive director ofBike Utah.In the meantime, so far this

year, there have been 142days when the daily air qual-ity index for Salt Lake Cityreached cautionary levels forozone or particulate matter,two pollutants that have beenlinked to a variety of diseases,including asthma, heart dis-ease and Alzheimer’s disease.Physicist David Roberts andphysician Nick Riesland calcu-lated that living in a city withmoderate air quality indexcan reduce a person’s lifespanby up to 30 minutes a day forthe rest of your life. Otherresearch shows that evenshort-term exposure to airpollution can have negativehealth effects, like increasedrespiratory infections.Cutting air pollution by reg-

ulating big polluters like re-fineries and power plants hasalready been largely achieved,said Deborah Burney-Sigman,executive director of BreatheUtah. Today, more than 70percent of air pollution emis-sions come from the general

population of the urban area.These include emissions fromcars and trucks, and pollut-ants from homes and smallbusinesses. Individuals burn-ing wood, in fire pits or intheir homes, produce as muchemission on some winter daysas all of big industry com-bined, Burney-Sigman said,citing a 2017 Utah study.“With air pollution, we

are all contributing but insmall ways as we go aboutour daily lives,” said Chris-tina Manning, professor ofenvironmental psychologyat Macalester college in St.Paul, Minnesota. “So there’snothing obvious to change.”After talking to behavioral

psychologists, it became clearto me that the majority ofUtahns are never going tomake public transportation aregular part of their routine,or adopt other behaviors thatwould make our air cleaner,unless some things change.

Step 1: Redefine goodand bad

There are six ways to influ-ence people’s behavior, and allof them are necessary to cre-ate widespread social change:“Help them love what theyhate, help them do what theycan’t, provide encouragement,

provide assistance, changethe economy and change thespace,” Grenny said.The first step, “help them

love what they hate” meansgiving people a framework forrethinking behavior.In 2013, Mike Daniels and

his team at The BehaviouralArchitects, an internationalbehavioral science consultingfirm based in Australia, triedto reframe how Melbournemotorists viewed theircommute, explaining that ifthey spend one to two hourscommuting a day, that addsup to nearly four work weeksin a year. Then, commuterswere asked to think abouthow they could use that timemore effectively — writing anovel, starting a business orplanning a vacation — if theytook public transit instead ofdriving a car.But while convincing people

that a behavior is good is animportant first step, it is notenough. Search engine datashow that Utahns research airquality more than residentsof any other state, but thatawareness does not alwaystranslate to action, accordingto a poll commissioned by theSalt Lake Tribune.It’s especially hard to turn

intention into action whenthere are barriers in the way,when short-term costs arecompeting against long-termbenefits and when large-scalecollective action is requiredto make a difference, saidManning.“Environmental concern is

competing with a lot of otherconsiderations in our dailylives — getting to work ontime, picking up the kids fromsoccer practice or visitingyour elderly parents,” saidSteffen Kallbekken, researchdirector for the Center forInternational Climate andEnergy Policy in Norway.“We are psychologically wiredto deal with immediate andvisible ‘threats.’ ”Before change can happen,

Grenny said, Americans needto stop thinking about conve-nience as the “highest moralgood,” and start prioritizingthe environment and people’shealth.Take smoking in public, for

example. Research showedsecondhand smoke wasunhealthy, decades beforethere were any laws dictatingwhere you could and couldnot smoke. Thirty years ago,the majority of buildings andairplanes had smoking areas.

KRISTIN MURPHY, DESERET NEWS

Rob Weidmann works while on the Utah Transit Authority FrontRunner train, during his hour-and-a-half commute from his Salt Lake home to work in Lehi on Nov. 8.

SOURCE: Calculations by John Close, environmentalstewardship & sustainability planner, Utah Transit Authority

What if everyone who drives towork along the Wasatch Frontwould take mass transit just oneday a week?

What if ...

TRIPLEUTA could

ridership

300,000UTA could take

2.7 millionUTA could eliminate

vehicle miles

to the moon and back!That’s more than five trips

+ ++

SingleoccupancyVehicle

SOV +TRAX

Bus +TRAX

Bike +TRAX

53 g/trip4 g/trip

16g/trip

0 g/trip

ChoicesmatterOne commuter trip (7 miles average) in a single-occupantvehicle produces more than 53 times the emissions of acommuter who bikes to a TRAX station and uses public transit.

Emissionsper

passengerper trip

Includes NOx, SOx, CO, HC, PM

SOURCE: October 2018 UTA Public Transportation and Air Quality report. rideuta.com

KRISTIN MURPHY, DESERET NEWS

Rob Weidmann waits for the bus on his morning commute

to work, in which he uses bus, TRAX and FrontRunner.

POLLUTIONFROM A1

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2018 DESERET NEWS A9

KRISTIN MURPHY, DESERET NEWS

Deseret News reporter Erica Evans commutes on her bicycle from South Salt Lake to Salt Lake City on Nov. 7.

But attitudes quickly shifted.In 1987, Beverly Hills, Cali-fornia, and Aspen, Colorado,banned smoking in restau-rants and several cities acrossthe country followed suit.By 1990, San Luis Obispo,California, became the firstcity in the world to ban indoorsmoking at all public places,including bars, and the federalgovernment banned smokingon most domestic flights.According to Grenny, rapid

change happened becausethe issue was morally rede-fined. “Whereas freedom ofchoice used to be the primaryconcern, the issue became:your smoking is affecting myhealth,” Grenny said. “Whenthat idea became part of thepopular conversation … thenorms started to change.”Burney-Sigman compared

smoking in public to drivinga car that pollutes. Ratherthan protecting the freedomto drive, we should prioritizeprotecting a person’s freedomto breathe uncontaminatedair, she said.

Step 2: Make it easierIf a city wants to get people

to take public transit, carpool,get regular emissions checksor practice trip chaining(clustering errands so youmake one long trip instead ofmultiple short trips through-out the week), two things arenecessary, according to Gren-ny. People need the know-howand the right tools.For example, to ride the bus,

people need to know how to

read a bus schedule, where toget on and off and how to pay.The environment also playsa role. If there are many busstops, if they are accessibleand if they are well-marked,people are more likely to usethem, Grenny said.“A lot of our thinking is

done at an unconscious level,lightning fast,” said Manning.When we don’t know howto do something or we’venever done something before,our immediate unconsciousresponse is fear, she said.It takes longer to conscious-

ly process questions like, whatare the costs and benefits ofthis? And how much pollutionor money will I save? That’swhy the gut reaction is oftenmore important than analyti-cal reasoning, said Manning.“You have to have a really

good economic argument toget over the fear of feelingincompetent,” she said.I experienced the fear of

incompetence when I wentwithout a car for a week. Be-fore my experiment, I didn’tknow what buses ran near myhouse or where they went. Ididn’t know that I couldn’t getchange on a bus if I paid incash, or that I could use theUtah Transit Authority appto pay. I didn’t know what thelittle white transfer slip waswhen the bus driver handed itto me for the first time. I wasembarrassed when I had toask, “What do I do with this?”The good news is I overcame

those barriers after riding thebus just one time.

Like businesses that offer adiscount on your first pur-chase, “free fare days” forpublic transit can be a goodway to get people to trysomething once, said Man-ning. HEAL Utah is workingwith UTA to promote a billthat would provide free fareson certain days in the winter,when inversions are typicallythe worst, according toHEAL’s executive director,Scott Williams. Last year, UTAtried making public transitfree for just one day and foundthat it cost about $70,000in lost fares, but increasedridership, Williams said. UTAreported that 17,560 cars wereremoved from the roads thatday, and three tons of pol-lutants were prevented fromentering the air.“The challenge we have

today is that we are increasing

population at a faster rate thanwe have before,” said Bird.Because bedroom commu-nities are being developedin places where there are nojobs, “commute distances areincreasing and vehicle milestraveled is growing at twicethe rate of population.”Half of vehicle trips made

along the Wasatch Front areless than three miles, a dis-tance that is easily bikeable,Sarnoff said. Since nearlya quarter of car emissionscome from starting a car,especially “cold starts” whenthe engine has been turnedoff for a while, eliminatingsmaller trips would havea significant impact on airquality, according to Sarnoff.Lest you think the answer toavoiding turning your car onand off is idling, studies showthat idling for more than 10seconds uses more fuel thanrestarting the engine.Experts, including Sarnoff,

agree that when bike lanesimprove, cycling increasesbecause people feel safer. SaltLake City’s previous mayoraladministration made a big

push to build bicycle infra-structure, but those effortshave stalled under the currentadministration, said Bird.

Step 3: Social pressureEven though all six cat-

egories of influence arenecessary to spur widespreadchange, Grenny admits thetwo categories that requiresocial pressure, “providingassistance” and “providingencouragement,” are the mostpowerful. In other words,we’re much more susceptibleto peer pressure than we maythink.“Research shows the prima-

ry reason people are honest isbecause we’re afraid of beingcaught and being shamed, notbecause we’re decent peo-ple,” Grenny said. “If you getpeople jumping turnstiles, jay-walking or cheating on theirtaxes, if that’s a norm, most ofus will start to cheat.”A 1990 experiment, con-

ducted by psychologist RobertCialdini of Arizona State Uni-versity and colleagues, showedthat people were more likely tolitter after they saw some-one else throw a paper flyeron the ground in a pollutedenvironment. But when theysaw someone throw a flyer onthe ground in a clean envi-ronment, they were less likelyto follow suit. The behaviorstood out and was thereforeeasier to disapprove of.According to Manning, if 10

percent of people are doingsomething, it starts to becomea trend. Grenny said it’s moreabout velocity: “If you canget 3 (percent) to 5 percentadopting a new behavior in ashort period of time, it startsto tip.”Close friends and respected

people in a community havethe most influence, theyagreed.“Wealthy people might think

of taking public transporta-tion as something that onlypoor people do. Some mightsee biking as something forpeople wearing spandex,” saidManning. “But if your peersstart adopting that behavior,the social conception changes.People start to think, ‘this is anormal thing that people likeme do.’ ”For example, imagine your

friends asked you to check theair quality, or wood-burningban status, every time you lita fire.Hermione Taylor, founding di-

rector of Do Nation, a nonprofitthat helps communities adoptsustainable behaviors, saidpeople should be encouraged tosee home wood-burning fires“as a treat” and to only usethem when absolutely neces-sary or when the weather isclear and pollution isn’t likelyto linger.Zero emissions buildings,

or buildings that create thesame amount of clean energythey use, have been aroundfor many years, according toCharlie Woodruff, a directorfor the U.S. Green BuildingCouncil for Utah & the North-ern Rockies. But even thoughthe construction techniquesare widely known, and severalgroups have demonstratedthey don’t have to cost morethan conventional buildings,most contractors in Utah aresticking with old ways, Wood-ruff said.The reason? The social

pressure isn’t there. Energyefficiency is not typically aperson’s top priority whenlooking for a place to live.And as the demand for hous-ing and office space continuesto grow, builders don’t havetime to stop and learn newconstruction techniques,

according to Woodruff.“People get into their rou-

tine,” he said. “They say thisis how I’ve done it for the last10 years, and it’s working, sothis is how I’m going to keepdoing it.”At the same time, Utah’s

energy codes are laggingbehind the national standards,Bird said. Twelve states haveadopted more stringent codesfor residential buildings. Twoyears ago, the Utah Legisla-ture chose not to adopt thestricter energy code, fearingit would make housing pricesgo up and make it harder forfirst-time buyers to qualify fora home, even though calcu-lations show people recoverthe additional upfront costof greener buildings throughenergy savings, said Bird.

Step 4: IncentivesThat brings us to the final

category of social influence:cost.“Are there incentives? Is it

cheaper or more expensive todo it one way or the other?”asked Grenny.This year, a tax incentive

that allowed for a credit ofup to $1,500 when Utahnspurchased an electric vehiclewas taken away and replacedwith an additional $122 elec-tric vehicle registrations fee,based on the fact that thosevehicles don’t contribute toroad maintenance by payingtax on gas.Utah legislators have also

rejected attempts to adoptCalifornia’s Zero EmissionsVehicle Program which hasbeen enacted in nine otherstates and requires car man-ufacturers to reach a quota ofelectric vehicle sales. Current-ly, the same electric vehiclescost up to $6,000 more inUtah than California becausethere is less supply, said Bird.Economic incentives for

electric cars are working inNorway, where there are moreelectric vehicles per capitathan any other country. AndNorway is using the strate-gy for more than just cars.GreeNudge in Norway showedshoppers the long-termcosts of running householdappliances based on energyefficiency to help people tothink beyond the price at thepoint of purchase.“It is often helpful to look for

the cases where what is goodfor the environment alignswith personal incentives,” saidKallbekken.Despite stubborn human

nature, experts agreed thatpeople do change, if you givethem a reason to.For Weidmann, the cost of

owning and maintaining a sec-ond car is enough to convincehim to take public transitto work. He’s been able toreframe the time he spends onthe train as time he’s takingfor himself. And even thoughwearing an air filter mask isn’tquite the social norm in Utah,he’s decided it’s necessary toprotect his health — and thehealth of his wife and two chil-dren, ages 10 and 13. That’swhy each member of thefamily of four carries aroundmasks, in their school bagsand work bags, in case bad airstrikes. Weidmann hopes oneday his family won’t have todo that.“I wish more people would

take public transit, I wishpublic transit went moreplaces that it wasn’t hard toget around … if there weremore electric cars,“ said Weid-mann. ”A lot of things addedtogether would make a hugedifference.”EMAIL: eevans@deseretnews.com

TWITTER: elevanserica

Litteringexperiment

Subject saw someone litter

Subject saw someone walk by

Normative Conduct: Recycling the Concept of Norms toReduce Littering in Public Places, by Robert B. Cialdini,Raymond R. Reno and Carl A. Kallgren

0

10

20

30

40

50

60%

Cleanenvironment

Litteredenvironment

SUBJECTS

WHOCHOSETO

LITTER

6%14%

54%

32%

QILING WANG, DESERET NEWS

Rob Weidmann, left, and Sophie Weidmann, 13, help Max Weidmann, 10, put on his air

pollution mask at their home in Salt Lake City on Nov. 8.

KRISTIN MURPHY, DESERET NEWS

Deseret News reporter Erica Evans locks her bike after

commuting from South Salt Lake to work downtown.

FORESTSFROM A1

Part of that involves encour-aging the timber industryand stoking interest in woodproducts, he added.There were 18 timber sales

across the state over the pastyear, and while there are 22timber-related industriesin Utah, the Forest Servicereceived no bids.Some of that inaction is due

to little industry interest incertain types of wood andan oversupply of product,Whittekiend said. A Wyomingmill buys lumber off the northslope of the Uintas, but Whit-

tekiend said there’s been littleactivity elsewhere.“It would be great to develop

broader, more diverse woodmarkets for the material wehave out there,” he said.Across the nation, the Forest

Service spends more than halfof its budget on fighting fires,leaving little money for vegeta-tion treatments that could helpit get ahead of the problem ofovergrown, unhealthy forests.Whittekiend said in Utah

there are 1.3 million acresready for some sort of vege-tation treatment after havingundergone an environmentalreview process.On average, it costs $250 to

treat each acre, he said, whichmeans those shovel-readyacres would need $340 million.“We have a tremendous

amount of work that needsto be done and somehow weneed to do more. It is not forlack of planning and it is notfor lack of desire; it is theresources,” he said.Whittekiend’s district, as an

example, operates on an annu-al budget of about $20 million.The Uinta-Wasatch-CacheNational Forest, abutting SaltLake City, received 10.7 mil-lion visitors in 2017 and is oneof the top five forests visited inthe country.Agencies target the wildland

urban interface as high priori-ty areas for treatment, but it isdifficult.“Those are the expensive

acres,” he said. “It is difficultto do a prescribed fire in some-one’s backyard.”In Utah this year, the Utah

Division of Forestry, Fire andState Lands says 1,331 fireshave scorched 486,991 acresat an approximate cost of $150million.“We don’t have the money

we need to do fuels treatmenton the scale that we needto get done,” Whittekiendsaid. “Utah’s situation is notunique. We spend a tremen-dous amount of money on

fire suppression, and we havestruggled historically to spendmoney on fuels management.”Lawmakers were dismayed at

Whittekiend’s presentation.“It is a pretty herculean task

that you are facing and we facethe impacts,” said Rep. KenIvory, R-West Jordan. “Thirtyto 40 percent of our watershedis severely impacted becauseof forest conditions.”Sen. David Hinkins, R-

Orangeville, wondered if therewere some way for the ForestService to tap into moneygenerated by mineral leasesor energy development on itslands, rather than have thatmoney go directly into the

nation’s general funds.Whittekiend said any sort of

funding stream would help.In fiscal year 2018, across

the Intermountain region thatincludes Utah, Nevada, Idaho,California, Colorado andWyoming, Whittekiend said295,403 acres were treated un-der a vegetation or fuels plan,including managed wildfires.The region includes 12

national forests, one nationalgrassland and covers 34 mil-lion acres.“The scale of work we have

before us is tremendous,” hesaid.EMAIL: amyjoi@deseretnews.com

TWITTER: amyjoi16