Salt Lake City is taking big steps to make sure its so-called "carbon footprint" continues to get smaller. The question, remains, however, whether small is really beautiful, as environmentalists like to claim.

It's a "crisis," Becker proclaimed. It demands "bold action to address what may be the defining issue of our era." That's interesting, because even if all human-generated carbon emissions touted by global warmists ceased tomorrow, it would only change the total carbon in the atmosphere by a minusule amount.

Becker is right about one thing: this certainly defines our era, at least for one loud segment of leaders: It defines them as quixotic crusaders panicked over imaginary catastrophes, while real problems fester all around us.

Let's review the facts: planet Earth has been warming and cooling throughout its history. A credible ocean temperature study by scientists in the alarmist camp recently showed the embarrassing result that the oceans seem to be cooling. This just can't be, the researchers said, and now looking for what went "wrong" with the measurements.

Maybe something actually went right. It's doubtful humankind can do much to alter the temperature trends of the planet either way.

Becker and his fellow climate change fanatics plunge ahead. Fortunately, so far, most of their ideas are fairly harmless. One plan calls for city vehicles to not idle more than ten seconds. Good luck on that if they have to take I-15 in rush hours.

Another will emulate the state plan of going to a four-day work week. As we've said of the state plan, why not go to a three-, two- or one-day week? That would save money and keep city bureaucrats out of the hair of otherwise productive citizens.

But one may wonder whether, deep in their hearts, climate-crazed liberals believe their own religion. Note how far off the goals are: 12, 32 and 42 years from now. It's very, very unlikely the mayor or Council members will still be in office by then, or that anyone will remember or care about the Great Climate Hysteria of the early part of the 21st Century.

Also note the cost, in an already stressed econmy, of useless initiatives to save the planet.

And finally, note that the alarmists all rely on modeling that so loosely contricted and with such wide variation in predictions that it really very hard to take any of it seriously.

We strongly encourage readers to take a look a 2003 speech delivered by Michaeal Crighton, a scientist in his own right, at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Crighton traced the rise -- and the risk -- of "consensus science" and gratefully puts global warming in perspective. Click here to read the speech .

Salt Lake officials surely must realize, even if subconsciously, that their plan has no connection to reality whatsoever. If they really wanted to do something, they'd proclaim, say, a 2 percent reduction by this time next year (even that would be fruitless). But that obviously wouldn't happen. So the goals instead are mere fantasies -- unrealistic goals to meet an unrealistic view of the world.

Liberal politicians do have an ace in the hole. There is a way to reduce Salt Lake City's greenhouse gases, and everything else.

Reduce the population of the city.

Experience elsewhere shows that liberal politicians, by pursuing their own wasteful agendas and neglecting the real needs of the populace, have sent residents fleeing. Check out Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Buffalo and other shrinking cities.

If you think Utah is immune to the population decline suffered by such Rust Belt cities, think again. The Census Bureau in July released its own estimates of the Salt Lake's population, from 2000 to 2007. When the rest of Utah grew tremendously, Salt Lake City's population shrank by more than 1,000.

City boosters howled, but shrinkage certainly isn't impossible. Just keep loading burdens on families and businesses while pursuing fantastic policies that have nothing to do with municipal government.