INTERVIEW WITH GEORGE HANDLEY

An Interview with George Handley of Brigham Young University and the Provo City
Council
Conducted by Spencer Boren

Spencer [00:00:01] All right. Hello, everyone. My name is Spencer Boren. I'm studying
Integrated Studies at Utah Valley University. I am here with Professor George Handley. He's
from Brigham Young University and he's a professor of comparative literature here at BYU.
We're here to talk about the issue of conservation at the Great Salt Lake. One of the biggest
influences on the Salt Lake Valley and in the Great Salt Lake Watershed, which is providing
water to the Great Salt Lake, is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the LDS or
Mormon church. And as a member myself, I'm concerned that most church members aren't more
invested in this and other environmental issues and I'm wondering what we can do to be better
and make a positive difference towards these issues, which are very real. And Dr. Handley has
released some very enlightening work on the intersection between environmentalism and
spirituality and our church, and that includes assisting in the composition and compilation of a
collection of essays on the subject, which is cited by the Church itself in at least one article I
found online. You can find a link to that article as well as to that collection of essays on the web
page, which we'll be releasing thelakeofsalt.weebly.com. And Professor Handley is also the co-
president for the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment and the faculty
coordinator for the brand new Global Environmental Studies minor at BYU, which I personally
am very excited to hear about. Just wanted to say thanks for joining me, George, and thanks for
the opportunity to speak with you.

Professor Handley [00:01:46] It's my pleasure, Spencer. Thanks.

Spencer [00:01:48] Excellent. All right. To get started, I wanted to ask a kind of basic question
that really strikes at the base of the issue that hopefully will get us started towards a good and
meaningful discussion of spiritual environmental stewardship; that question is, given that the
church has released statements about the environment and that general authorities have spoken
on environmental stewardship and there have even been general conference talks which
reference environmental issues and environmental stewardship. The Church has made it really
clear that they're trying hard to follow best environmental practice. But why is the understanding
of most Latter-day Saints then, that environmentalism is a largely political issue rather than
spiritual? I don't think people connect it to spirituality or to the Church.

Professor Handley [00:02:43] Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, I don't, I don't know, you know,
I mean, when we think of the Church as a global community, I think it probably gets more and
more difficult to make generalizations about Latter-day Saints attitudes about environmental
stewardship.

Spencer [00:02:59] Mm hmm.

Professor Handley [00:03:00] Because if you were to travel to even other parts of the United
States maybe or to Europe or other parts of the world, you might find, we might find that what
we find here in Utah is somewhat unique. And there has been, there's plenty of evidence that the
Intermountain West in the United States has a particular, has been shaped by a particular history
of federal land ownership, of very high percentages of the state's properties and so on. And so
there's, there's more tension around certain kinds of environmental issues here than there are in
other parts of the country. So anyway, that's just one slight qualification, is that we, we don't
really know. At least, we know what surveys of Latter-day Saints in the United States indicate
about environmental attitudes, but beyond that, we don't have a lot of data. I do think, you know,
what you described is all true, although it's relatively recent. So it's not had the amount of time
maybe or reiteration that could really saturate the culture more, which I think is what's needed so
-

Spencer [00:04:11] So as far as the church's statements and involvement in environmental issues,
that's been fairly recent. And so it hasn't had time to sink in, is what you're saying.

Professor Handley [00:04:20] Yeah, exactly, I mean, the church created a website sometime back
in 2015 maybe on conservation and stewardship. There was a, one talk by one Seventy back in
2013 by Elder Marcus Nash, which was the first ever of a talk exclusively dedicated to
environmental stewardship by a General Authority. But it wasn't in general conference. Although
it was posted on the website of the church and it was, you know, highlighted in Deseret News
and it was later republished in Liahona Magazine.

Spencer [00:04:58] Hmm.

Professor Handley [00:05:00] But that only happened, oddly enough, that, that republication
happened something like eight years later or something, it was quite a long time. And then we
have one general conference talk at this point by Bishop Caussé. So we've had isolated
statements by Elder Oaks, different, Elder Ballard, Elder Snow have talked about stewardship in
different contexts of different talks they were giving at different locations. So it's, it's a little bit
thin in terms of, you know, how much emphasis it's been getting and how much saturation it's
going, it would be expected to have had at this point. Our manuals don't reflect it. Our Sunday
school manuals don't yet have a lot of information about stewardship. You know, it's not touched
on when we do Doctrine and Covenants, even though that's one of the most stand-out doctrines
or principles in the revelations of Joseph Smith in the Doctrine and Covenants is the doctrine of
stewardship -

Spencer [00:06:01] Mm hmm.

Professor Handley [00:06:02] - at least in my view. So I think I think there's still a lot of work to
be done that I would expect the Church will continue to do, because they've made it very clear
that they are in the process of developing and implementing a sustainability plan for the church,
and that that's going to pick up some steam is prob- presumably going to have more features.
We'll probably hear more about it in either conference talks or in other contexts when general
authorities are speaking. I mean, Bishop Waddell spoke shortly after Bishop Caussé's talk. He's a
counselor in the presiding bishopric. He spoke at the Great Salt Lake Symposium at the Quinney
Law School Symposium and, and gave more detail than Bishop Caussé had been able to give in
the general conference talk. So I'm kind of hopeful that we'll just continue to hear that. The, the
bigger question maybe is why, that you've asked, as you know, even so, why are we still not
jumping on the bandwagon, so to speak, or why we're not responsive, more responsive than, than
we are? And I think it's you know, it's a function, it's a larger American problem. It's not a Latter-
day Saint problem exclusively. We're very distracted. We're very entertained. We're very
materialistic. We're very comfortable. And so environmental problems are harder for people in
developed nations, in privileged circumstances like that, to really either believe or care about.

Spencer [00:07:41] Mm hmm.

Professor Handley [00:07:41] Because we have easy access to adapt- adaptability. We can, we
can shield ourselves from those consequences with greater ease. But when something like the
Great Salt Lake starts to look like it's drying up and we're facing a major health crisis if that
happens, then, you know, we've seen a lot of awakening to, to a problem. Health, the health care
concerns surrounding air quality generally has gotten much more traction in Utah because it's
visible.

Spencer [00:08:09] Yes.

Professor Handley [00:08:09] And because it impacts people immediately. So it's the longer
term, you know, effects of, say, climate change or biodiversity loss on future generations or
poorer people across the world, that we're a lot more deaf to, you know, and blind to. We really
don't tend to pay much attention to that. We tend not to even believe it if we hear it or if we do
believe it it's still sort of an abstract concept. It's, it's harder to visualize and understand. But
when something hits us at, at, at home, you know, we tend to to wake up. But if you go
anywhere else in the world where people are much more dependent on the land, where their lives
are much more fragile and vulnerable because of environmental conditions, they know what's
going on.

Spencer [00:08:57] Yeah.

Professor Handley [00:08:58] And they're in full blown panic. And they, and they're, they're
facing crises that are a lot harder for, for them to solve than it is for us to say. “It's kind of warm
outside, I think I'll go turn on my air conditioning and I can still turn my tap on. I still get
water.”

Spencer [00:09:12] So the hope would be that we don't have to reach that level of-

Professor Handley [00:09:17] Yeah, exactly.

Spencer [00:09:17] - panic or crisis before we take environmental action, not just as a church but
as a local group membership. The members here that are in this Intermountain West culture,
which you've mentioned.

Professor Handley [00:09:35] Yeah.

Spencer [00:09:35] And that has a large influence on how we view the environment and
environmental issues based on various factors.

Professor Handley [00:09:43] Yeah.

Spencer [00:09:45] That kind of ties into - we focus on this region - why is it important that LDS
members have an ecological understanding of the world right here, right around us? The Great
Salt Lake.

Professor Handley [00:10:00] Yeah.

Spencer [00:10:00] Um. Yeah. Why? Why is that particularly important, would you say?

Professor Handley [00:10:05] Well, I think it's important anywhere. The important principle is to
know where you live really. To know it well enough to understand it. Right? Because, and this
goes back to the issue of, you know, modern technology and material comforts, the problem with
American society is you can pretty much live anywhere. And it, you know, you don't necessarily
have to know those local conditions. But Wallace Stegner, one of the American West's most
important writers, along with even going back to the 19th century, John Wesley Powell himself
had, had made similar kinds of arguments. We've, we've got a long history of people warning us
like these two, and others, that if you're going to live in the American West, you're going to live
in a semi-arid climate.

Spencer [00:10:59] Mm hmm.

Professor Handley [00:10:59] And if you're going to live in a semi-arid climate, you need to be
careful about how dense your population growth is and where you choose to, to grow because of
the fragility of water resources. And this was all said long before climate change became an
issue. And now we know that not only are we growing in the American West faster than other
places in the country, but we also know that our water resources are imperiled because of climate
change, because of decreasing snowpack. So it's a double, double whammy, a double edged
problem of rapid population growth and increasing fragility of water resources. So, you know,
Stegner said, if you're going to live in the West, you've got to get over the color green, you
know.

Spencer [00:11:46] Yeah.

Professor Handley [00:11:46] He talked about how you've got to learn how to live in balance
with, with your local conditions. So that's just the general principle, I would say is everyone
needs to learn how to live in balance with their local conditions and if you don't know anything
about local conditions where you live, then you're not a responsible citizen.

Spencer [00:12:03] It's potentially much more destructive to be an unaware citizen in such a
fragile ecosystem as we live in.

Professor Handley [00:12:13] Exactly, yeah.

Spencer [00:12:13] And so how have we gotten to this point where. Even though we live in this
desert, it's, it's not like we don't know that it doesn't rain all that often and that we don't get a lot
of rainfall. Most of us who live here in Utah, who've been raised here, grew up learning, this is a
desert. This is a difficult place to live in. And yet somehow we somehow perceive ourselves as
having more water than we actually do.

Professor Handley [00:12:46] Yeah.

Spencer [00:12:47] And it feels like every couple of years there's a big drought scare and the
local government will come out with a statement saying, please conserve water.

Professor Handley [00:12:58] Right.

Spencer [00:12:59] And sometimes even mandates for things like watering lawns. But somehow,
most of the time, we still perceive ourselves as having enough water or enough water to continue
to develop.

Professor Handley [00:13:12] Yeah. Yeah. I don't know, I mean, I've never seen any sort of, you
know, scientific survey to prove my, my hunch. But, but I know that in Phoenix, Arizona, I used
to live in Arizona before I came to Utah for a few years, and I remember a presentation by the
director of the Botanical Garden there in Phoenix, and he said that school kids would regularly
come to the, to the garden, of course, and he would ask them, you know, "by raise of hands" -
and these are like elementary school kids - he said, "How many of you live in a desert?" And
you'd think all their hands would go up. And he said the vast majority of them didn't raise their
hands. So I question whether or not we really understand where we live. I mean, I think you're
right. There's sort of a generic kind of floating around in our heads, vague idea that this is not
we're not in Hawaii.

Spencer [00:14:04] Yeah.

Professor Handley [00:14:04] We're not in Nauvoo, we're not in New England. We don't deal
with, you know, floods and massive numbers of mosquitoes and, and, and all the associated
environmental issues with living in a wetter climate. And most of the Latter-day Saint ancestry
came from much wetter areas, so they were certainly aware of the climate differences. But I
think we, I think we, you know, we sort of, when we figured out that irrigation was going to help
us and that we could dam rivers and we could, you know, stockpile water resources, there was a,
a kind of euphoria that settled in, not only here but all over the country, that, you know, modern
technology was learning how to conquer nature and that we were learning how to control the
elements and that we, we were going to be able to provide for ourselves. And I think if you sort
of look at the, the visual evidence of that, right, and you look around at all the houses and green
lawns and, and, and parks and so on, then you, you say, well, this is a pretty green place. And it
is, it isn't as we don't really understand what semi-arid means. You know, I've had to keep
reminding myself of the statistics. The rainforest gets 100 inches a year on average. The Uinta
mountains get about 60 inches a year and the Uinta mountains, of course, supply water here in
Utah Valley. Utah Valley gets 15 inches a year. So it, it's a tremendous drop off when you even
just move from the mountains down to the valleys. And of course, we're fortunate to have access
to the water that comes from the mountains, but the actual climate conditions where we live are,
are pretty dry. Right? And of course, it gets worse, dry, not necessarily to morally color it
unfairly towards drier climates, but it gets much drier if you go out to the farther, out into the
Great Basin. So anyway, I just think we could be more educated about what that, you know,
what the actual conditions are, where we live. And, you know, and, and one of the reasons why
that hasn't quite penetrated us, I think has to do with again, sort of the manufactured reality, the
constructed reality that we've built around ourselves in, in this place.

Spencer [00:16:36] Yeah. Excellent. This is a question I wasn't planning on asking, and I hope
it's not too political. But do you think the Church has a place or a responsibility to be part of that
education? I think traditionally we think of the school systems as teaching people what kind of
place -

Professor Handley [00:17:04] Yeah.

Spencer [00:17:04] - they live in and certainly individual families and individual experience go
into that as well. But the church certainly could have an impact on helping people understand
that they're a real part of the world around them. Do you, do you think that that's something that
the Church could do or should do? And what would that look like if they were to assist in kind of
educating us about what kind of a world we really live in?

Professor Handley [00:17:35] That's a great question. I mean, I just take a signal from Elder
Nash's wonderful talk from 2013 that I referenced earlier, and Bishop Caussé’s incredible
general conference talk as sort of that's a guide, guiding set of talks right there. And when you
look at those talks, you can see that there's an opportunity there that the Church is moving into to
say we don't have to teach politics, we don't have to teach, you know, what are the proper, you
know, whatever the Church decides is the appropriate policy for saving the Great Salt Lake or
doing whatever else we might be doing. The Church clearly can teach principles and it can attach
and integrate concepts of stewardship of natural resources into our discipleship as Christians.
And that's what I saw. I mean, if you look at the very ending of Bishop Caussé's talk, and he's
talking about the, you know, well-worn, well-known phrase of Jesus when he says, "well done,
thou, good and faithful servant", right, this is the moment of sort of final assessment of our
mortal life before the Savior and he's saying, "well done thou, good and faithful servant," not
only as Bishop Caussé articulates it because you have been good to humankind, but you've been
good to my creations. So if that continues to be the trend, which I certainly think it needs to be,
and I hope it will be, that doesn't have to be political. I do think that's moral. I do think that's a
teaching of a moral principle. I think stewardship is a moral principle in the gospel, and it's
fundamental: I personally accept it as a fundamental component of my discipleship. And if we
can do a better job, both institutionally, but maybe even especially at the local level, of helping
people identify ways to enact those principles that are, that help us to feel integrity, because I
think deep down we all know that we should be respecting and honoring God's creations, and I
think deep down we don't feel good about it when we don't.

Spencer [00:19:59] Yeah.

Professor Handley [00:20:00] So if people - but I think a lot of us feel disempowered. We're
confused. We don't know what the right approach is, and so we're kind of waiting for help, you
know, and I think, but that's why we go to church, you know, like we go to church because we
know what the principles are, but we're trying to figure out how to put them into practice in our
lives. So I do think I, and I anticipate that this will be the case, that there will be a day when it
won't be a shocking political thing to say in a priesthood meeting or Relief Society meeting, you
know, "here are some tips for your stewardship of the natural environment". For, that you can
think about this week or this month or -

Spencer [00:20:41] Yeah.

Professor Handley [00:20:42] - this is Brother so-and-so is going to bear his testimony about his
recent experience in enacting some of these principles. And maybe to the point where when we
plan activities and we think about what we're doing with natural resources while we're doing
other things, we're more mindful of our impact on, on the environment. So that's a long way of
saying, yes, I think that can happen, but I don't think it has to be political. I think that's actually a
misperception. And I think it's been challenging because the environment's so polarized
politically. But I think those two talks show us how to do it because they show you that you can
talk about stewardship and you don't have to, this isn't about picking sides between the spotted
owl and the logger. It's not about picking sides between conservative and liberal. It's not about,
you know, being in a, locked into a certain box politically. It's about just being understanding
and accepting of our, of our responsibilities.

Spencer [00:21:45] That's excellent. I couldn't agree more that this doesn't have to be a political
issue. And I hope there does come a day when, like you said, it's not shocking -.

Professor Handley [00:21:59] Yeah.

Spencer [00:21:59] - to say those kinds of things and plan activities in that kind of way.

Professor Handley [00:22:03] I've heard of some wards that have created a stewardship
coordinator for the ward. You know, I think that's a great idea.

Spencer [00:22:08] Wow, that's, that's really inspiring. I hope they do that in my ward. I would
love that.

Professor Handley [00:22:13] Well, you can go ask your bishop if he would call you.

Spencer [00:22:15] That would, that would be wonder- I mean, that would be a dream. Absolute
dream come true. So as, as we try to help people understand that this isn't just political, it has a
real spiritual impact, as we talk about the Great Salt Lake and how much it's kind of nourished
us, how much the ecosystem here in the Salt Lake and Utah Valleys has been essential to the
growth of the LDS church, it reminds me of something that you mentioned when you came to
UVU for Sustainability Week a couple of weeks ago, and you referenced in the book 'Braiding
Sweetgrass', which I've been hearing a lot about and would love to read. You mentioned that the
author of this book, I don't know her name -
Professor Handley [00:23:14] Robin Wall Kimmerer.

Spencer [00:23:15] - she mentions that when we've benefited from the environment and when
we've taken something from it, we owe it something back. And we have undoubtedly benefited
from the Wasatch Front as an environment. What do you think we owe back to it, especially in
this time of crisis?

Professor Handley [00:23:41] Yeah, that's a great question. Well, I mean, I would go to the heart
of what we were talking about earlier. If you know the unique environmental conditions of where
you live and you say, okay, we live in this really interesting margin between the Great Basin and
the Colorado Plateau where there is abundance of water. In the Colorado Plateau in the high
mountains, but its, its delivery to the valleys is now transformed by, by dams and the history of
irrigation. But that has enabled us to flourish, the Latter-day Saint population anyway, to flourish
in its history of persecution and near starvation, that, that essentially those conditions and the
water that they were able to rely on help them to survive and eventually thrive here, it seems to
me that we owe a great deal of concern and attention to water resources. I would add something
cultural too. We owe a tremendous debt to Native American populations and we should be more
respectful and knowledgeable and aware of that history because, you know, what enabled us to
survive as Latter-Day Saint settlers in the 19th century was access to a lot of the resources that
they had enjoyed.

Spencer [00:25:12] And some of the knowledge, if I understand correctly.

Professor Handley [00:25:16] And some of the knowledge. Yeah, absolutely. And eventually we,
you know, benefited from the U.S. government expelling them from these areas to reservations.
And so we kind of have to be cognizant of that history. I think it should inspire humility. I think
it should certainly inspire a desire to want to be careful with water resources and to understand
their fragility and identify ways in which we can grow sustainably. You know, so I mean, we can
get into what that might mean. But I would say that's, that to me is sort of obligation, number
one, because if we want to preserve, reserve the right to reproduce and have our children settle
here and, you know, we want them to have the kind of opportunities that we've enjoyed, even for
purely selfish human reasons, it seems like it behooves us to say the way we're living right now
is not going to provide that kind of opportunity for them. You know, we're going to limit their
ability to enjoy this place, and especially if we want that opportunity to grow, we need to make
sure that we grow in balance with this environment as, as well as we can.

Spencer [00:26:48] Yeah. Excellent, and tying into that, I don't want to go into visions of
apocalypse, but what might it be like for members of the Church and the Church itself if we lose
the Great Salt Lake? What would that mean to us? I understand that your area is primarily
philosophical, so I'm not asking about specific medical issues that could arise. But what, what
would we lose as a culture, especially, and as a church if we lose the Great Salt Lake?

Professor Handley [00:27:27] Well, I mean, we can't ignore the medical, you know,
environmental consequences. Right? This is the, you know, most important flyway for birds in
the western United States. And so if there's no Great Salt Lake, they're in a world of hurt. If
there's no Great Salt Lake, we have a major dust problem and we have major problems with
pollution because of what's in the lake bed and dangerous metals and bacteria that can cause
tremendous health problems for the human population. But we also lose our connection to our
own history, which is, I think, at the heart of what your question is getting at. You know, this is,
this landscape was given, there's, there's no, it's not accidental that the river that connects the
Great Salt Lake with Utah Lake is called Jordan River. The Latter-day Saint pioneers saw this
landscape as holy. They saw it as resembling the Holy Land, and they understood themselves to
be near a so-called Dead Sea, a saline body of water with fresh water surrounding it and
abundant rivers. But they understood they were in a desert, and that's why they thought through a
lot of those issues as they did. So it seems to me a total betrayal of our history. I mean, the
Latter-Day Saints settlers only survived in Utah Valley because of Utah Lake, because of the
June Sucker. And so when we have been engaging in this work over the last several decades to
restore the Provo River Delta, which is in its final stages of restoration right now before it's
going to be open to the public, we're, we're not only protecting a watershed and we're not only
making the river, the river and the lake healthier biologically, ecologically, but we're honoring
our history and we're honoring the Native American history because it was their presence here -
they were here because of the fish. This lake was teeming with fish, and the Provo River was
teeming with fish, and everybody knew that this was why this place was such a desirable
location to settle, because there was protein and there was opportunity that actually was scarcer
in Salt Lake Valley than it was here. There's more freshwater here, there was more big game,
there was more biodiversity and opportunity here and that's why the native populations were
larger here in Utah Valley than they were in Salt Lake Valley. So anyway, that's, I'm getting a
little off topic, but I would just say I think it's, you know, a way of, you know, when we think
about the phrase in Mormon theology, Latter-day Saint theology about the hearts of the fathers
should be turned to the children and the children to the fathers, right, that there's respect for
ancestry. So it's turning our hearts to the fathers and mothers, but it's also thinking about future
generations. It's turning our hearts towards the children and saying, you know, we need to live in
such a way that we pass on a better place than we found it.

Spencer [00:30:44] Yeah. Excellent. And as I, as I understand it, this, the health effects from the
Great Salt Lake may stretch. We really have no idea how far. But from a little bit of research I've
done the distance between Tremonton and Santaquin, Salt Lake and Utah Valleys, which are in
the immediate vicinity of the Great Salt Lake, is about 75 to 100 miles.

Professor Handley [00:31:18] Mm hmm.

Spencer [00:31:19] And the dust, for instance, from the Owens Lake catastrophe reached at least
100 miles. So that's a majority of the population of Utah, a large population of Latter-day Saints.

Professor Handley [00:31:34] Yeah.

Spencer [00:31:36] And we, we could really be making this place perhaps not unlivable, but
certainly much more difficult to live in.

Professor Handley [00:31:47] Yeah.

Spencer [00:31:49] That does seem like a major concern. You mentioned the restoration of the
Provo River Delta.

Professor Handley [00:31:58] Mm hmm.

Spencer [00:31:58] And I understand you are on or were on the Provo City Council.

Professor Handley [00:32:04] I am currently yeah.

Spencer [00:32:05] And I assume that has to do some, some of your work there has to do with
that restoration. From that experience, could you give us any insight on what we might do as
Latter-Day Saints and as citizens for the restoration of the Great Salt Lake? Are there any lessons
you've learned about water conservation that carry there?

Professor Handley [00:32:31] That's a great question. I mean, well, the honest answer is that the
restoration project is largely a consortium of state and federal agencies that has not had to do
directly with the municipalities that are surrounding the lake. That said, they have coordinated
with us. They have communicated with us regularly and kept us abreast of what's going on and
we have, in our case, you know, agreed to build some trails, some parks around the new restored
Delta. And we had to rely on our good citizens in the western part of the city who were willing to
sell their land into conservation easement so that it would be preserved for the restoration.

Spencer [00:33:25] Mm hmm.

Professor Handley [00:33:26] So, and I've been involved a little bit in kind of encouraging other
landowners in adjacent areas to look into conservation easements as well. We've had three or
four property owners who are already signed on to preserve their land under conservation
easements and, and a handful of others who may yet come on board. And that's been also kind
of, you know, a combination of, the City of Provo created an agricultural commission, our
commissioner has been out talking to those property owners, some of whom are in county land,
some of whom are in city land, working with state, with nonprofits like the Nature Conservancy
and other agencies to help get the funding to place those conservation easements on those lands.
So that's one thing municipalities can do, is they can be real defenders of open space and they
can be defenders of water conservation, advocates, I should say, for, for water conservation. You
know, we have had those difficult discussions on the council. I think we're still a work in
progress, but we do have a stronger commitment to water conservation than we used to and we're
working on educational programs for the citizens so that they can be made more aware of things
that they can do. We have a rather unique situation in Provo because a lot of our water, we had
water rights to since the 19th century. So we have, we're actually a lot more wealthy city water
wise than a lot of our neighboring cities. But we didn't want to be bad citizens and just say, "Oh,
well, we've got all this water. We don't need to be as radically conservative as, you know, a place
like Lehi that essentially purchased all of their water from outside sources". So we have to be, we
have to be leaders. We have to be models of water conservation. And it requires cities to really
dig in and teach. And a lot of that has happened because citizens have asked for it.

Spencer [00:35:41] Hmm.

Professor Handley [00:35:41] You know, it really matters when citizens say, "hey, I'm trying to
save water and you're making it hard for me".

Spencer [00:35:47] Yeah.

Professor Handley [00:35:47] Or, you know, "Your policies are not squaring up. They're not
helping us do a better job". And we've had a lot of citizens who've been way out ahead of the city
in what they wanted to do with their properties and so on that we've had to, we've had to try to
figure out, you know, how to help them do what's right and encourage others to do what's right.
So that's a long way of saying that I think, I think citizens need to be very vocal about water
conservation as a high priority. And there's a lot in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints issued a statement during the, you know, when the awareness of what was happening to
the Great Salt Lake came into the consciousness of the community to encourage members to be
conservation minded, I again, it may be something that I was like, "Well, that was great that that
was said". I'm not sure how much it saturated the culture.

Spencer [00:36:39] Yeah.

Professor Handley [00:36:40] I don't know how many people actually heard it. I don't know how
many people actually believed it. And so I think we just need more and more of that.

Spencer [00:36:48] Yeah.

Professor Handley [00:36:48] And I, but I think individuals like you, like me, you know, for
members of the church and we say, "This is important to me, I'm going to I should be anxiously
engaged in a good cause anyway. I don't need I don't need the church leadership to tell me what
to do at every turn. I don't, I don't even need, you know, the Holy Spirit to be telling me to brush
my teeth in the morning. I know what's right for me. I know what I, how I want to live. I can ask
God for blessings and help me to live a good life. And one part of the good life that I want to live
is, is a life of stewardship and advocating for stewardship". And there are lots of Latter-day
Saints doing this. You know, and again, I would say in the case of Provo, which is a very strong
majority of the population are Latter-day Saints, they've been, they've been very vocal. So it's
been really encouraging to see that.

Spencer [00:37:37] Excellent. And I'm very excited to hear about that. I think it can sometimes
feel whether or not this is factual, that an environmentally friendly or environmentally conscious
member of the church is in the minority, and -

Professor Handley [00:37:59] Well, if it, if it, I meant to mention this but if it, if it comforts
anybody, Provo passed, about four months ago, we passed the very first time a sustainability plan
and called it Conservation and Resiliency Plan for the city. And it includes everything from
water conservation, recycling energy, clean energy goals, recycling goals, tree canopy, open
space preservation, you name it. It's the first of its kind in the county and every city can do this if
Provo can do it. You know, we're, we're a very Latter-day Saint community. We're very
conservative. This is not about liberal versus conservative, and again, it's not about Latter-day
Saint versus non-Latter-day Saint. It's just the right thing to do. But if it can happen here, it can
happen anywhere. And it happened because citizens got involved. Citizens cared about who was
in office, citizens cared about going down to the city center and expressing their views, writing
their city council members, writing the mayor and saying, "Hey, this is what we want." We did a
survey of the city and sustainability was way up high in, in citizen priorities. So it's a myth, I
think, that this is some sort of disjuncture, like I think most Latter-day Saints really want to be
good stewards. I think there's, it's all misleading because of polarization in our political system
right now. But if you just get on the ground and ask people what they care about, they care about
nature, they care about their kids, they want open space for their grandkids, they want good air
quality. You know, they want all the things that we need. And so if you just, if you just listen to
people and people get their voices out, really good things can happen.

Spencer [00:39:43] That's wonderful! That's really encouraging to hear. And I mean, it sounds
like from what you've been saying with your connection to Provo City in that plan, as well as the
restoration of the watershed, individuals have made a really large difference, individual citizens
-.

Professor Handley [00:40:02] Yeah.

Spencer [00:40:03] - who either donated their land or spoke out to municipal leaders. They were
a driving force behind this.

Professor Handley [00:40:12] Yeah, get involved locally. I think that's the real key.
Unfortunately, it's like 20% of registered voters vote during municipal elections, which is way
too low. Get out and vote because those are the people who are going to affect your life the
most.

Spencer [00:40:25] Yeah.

Professor Handley [00:40:25] It's not the president. It's not the congressman. It's not the senator.
It's your, it's your city council, your, and your mayor.

Spencer [00:40:33] Excellent. Thank you for that advice as well, and I need to do that myself.
Register for where we live now.

Professor Handley [00:40:41] Yeah.

Spencer [00:40:41] But. I think that's really exciting to hear about the involvement of individual
members of the Church coming and supporting those issues. A concern that is a pretty major
concern is that most of the water that is being sort of leached before, from the Great Salt Lake
before it can reach the Great Salt Lake is coming from agriculture.

Professor Handley [00:41:13] Mm hmm.

Spencer [00:41:13] And there has been legislation passed that allows, for instance, farmers to
waive, or not waive their water rights, but to not use water without losing their water rights so
that they have the opportunity to support -.

Professor Handley [00:41:35] Yeah.

Spencer [00:41:35] - the Lake during times like this, times of drought. But since that law has
been passed, not - a negligible number of farmers have taken advantage of that legislation. And
that leads me to kind of believe that there are - and many people in these Utahn rural
communities are Latter-day Saints, especially, I believe, the highest density of, well, not the
highest density, but the highest percentage of LDS population in any county is in Randolph
County, which is essentially solely a farming community. So sorry to come to the question in
such a roundabout way, but how do we encourage people like this to see the Great Salt Lake and
what is happening now as an issue worth their notice, worth their time? Because it's certain that
this environment has an impact on those people. But whether it's because it's scary or whether it's
because it's inconvenient or whether it's because they don't understand the personal importance,
some people don't seem to care. So how do we help those people, those of us who do care, who
want to contribute to the solution of this problem, how do we help those people who may have a
larger influence on the preservation of the Great Salt Lake get involved? How do we encourage
them?

Professor Handley [00:43:28] Yeah. Well, it's a real tricky problem because I think anything that
increases polarization is bad. And so if it's like if it turns into an urban or a bunch of urbanites
telling a bunch of agricultural people how to, how to do right, that just feels all kinds of
uncomfortable to me.

Spencer [00:43:51] That becomes a moral issue for the person who is telling those farmers,
"Hey, you need to do such and such."

Professor Handley [00:43:58] Right, I mean I think, I think I feel for those communities and I
care for them. And I don't, I don't want to see them get wiped out. You know, we've had the
same struggle with transitioning to clean energy in communities that were dependent on coal and
coal plants. So you've got to find a way to bridge that gap. And you, and you have to make -
you've got to find ways to make the transition, you know, doable and feasible for people in those
circumstances and help them find the motivations. And I don't think the motivation comes from
wagging our finger at them and say you're really a big problem. I mean, you know, one of the
reasons they're, they're a big problem is because we eat so much meat in this state.

Spencer [00:44:41] Yeah.

Professor Handley [00:44:42] So we grow all this alfalfa to feed all this cattle and we're growing
stuff we don't need, you know, we're and we're so I mean, you know, they're responding to a
market that we're creating in our lifestyle and in our behavior. So I don't I don't think it's, you
know, healthy to just sort of disproportionately, even though I agree statistically agriculture is the
major contributor to water consumption in the state.
Spencer [00:45:10] It's, it's not fair just to attribute that agriculture to the people who are doing
the farming.

Professor Handley [00:45:15] Yeah. As if it's like this moral responsibility that's just weighing
heavily on their shoulders if only they would get, get going on the right behavior then we could
solve this problem.

Spencer [00:45:27] It's just as much on us and our demands.

Professor Handley [00:45:30] Yeah and I think it's again it's not so much a matter of saying
could you please show some more restraint, but can we find ways to incentivize and reward the
right kind of behavior? You know, I think that's a policy question rather than a moral, moralizing
issue and I think that's healthier as an approach. So, you know, I would love to, I would love for
us to rethink the need for supporting so much of the beef industry, because I think it's so
unhealthy both for our bodies and for our air, for our climate, for our land and for our water. But
like all unhealthy economies, we've got to find replacements. We've got to find adequate ways to
help people make transitions away from things that, that are unhealthy without, you know,
devastating them. So that's, that's a, that's a tough problem. But I think we can do it. You know, I
was part of a really modest project, but very inspired project by an art, artist, Alisha Anderson,
who lived in Carbon County for a time to really understand attitudes and views there. And her
project was really like, let's get Wasatch Front people talking to, to people in these rural counties
and vice versa. Let's have them hear each other. You know, there's, there's just such a gap and it's
so devastating to our politics. And if we can find ways to find common ground, I'd love to see a
whole team of young people like you getting out into those rural communities and building
bridges of understanding and really being champions for those communities in understanding
who they are, what their needs are, what their concerns are, but also, like, helping to create some
dialogue around water, around climate and clean energy and see if we can't solve those problems
together.

Spencer [00:47:33] That's marvelous. I love that. And sort of, I love what you said about things
that are creating polarization are not helpful. That's nothing, nothing we want to lean into, is
something that will create polarization and I do believe building bridges is very important. And
again, another thing that you mentioned that you've used, Sustainability Week was, that we can
learn to love something by learning what it needs. And this is something that I personally feel the
Great Salt Lake is lacking because a lot of people, we've discussed this a lot and there's a lot of
dialogue in early accounts of what is the Great Salt Lake is a beautiful place or is it -

Professor Handley [00:48:42] Is it dead? Yeah.

Spencer [00:48:44] - desolate and disgusting. And I do believe a lot of people still feel that way.

Professor Handley [00:48:48] Mm hmm. Oh yeah.

Spencer [00:48:49] That the Great Salt Lake is a disgusting place and so there's not a lot of love
that comes out of that. So by learning what it needs, I think we could come a lot closer to loving
it and then in turn learning to give up a little bit -
Professor Handley [00:49:09] Yeah.

Spencer [00:49:09] - of what's, what's needed there. How do you think we can progress towards
that learning?

Professor Handley [00:49:19] Well, yeah, I think, I think I mean, I'm a humanities professor, so
I'll say something in favor of the arts. I think the arts can play a huge role here. I saw this with
Utah Lake. Recently, you know, the problems we faced here in this valley, which didn't get as
much attention as the Great Salt Lake did. But, you know, we were, we were about to pave a
good portion of the lake and ruin the entire thing. And it was amazing to me that it happened
under, under our watch because nobody was really paying attention to the lake itself. And there
was also this assumption it was so polluted. It's kind of ugly. It's not like Lake Tahoe. It's not a
good lake. Right? And so we, we love Utah, but then when we get down into the specifics of,
like, what are the characteristics of the place, you can't talk about Utah and the populations along
the Wasatch Front without talking about Utah Lake, Jordan River, Provo River, Bear River, the
Great Salt Lake. I mean, it's like this is our water system! This is what makes life here on the
Wasatch Front possible. And so if you love the place, you know, you darn well better understand
what it needs, otherwise you're going to hurt it, you know? And we know that's a rule in good
parenting, right? If you're going to love a child, you have to understand the child's needs. You're
going to love a student as a, as a schoolteacher, you've got to understand the students needs. You
can't just say I'm, my intentions are to be loving. I actually have to know what it is I'm loving.
And so that takes some work. And what I found is that when people started paying attention to
how beautiful Utah Lake is and what a treasure it is - and I think we just should be more
proactive about that instead of just reactive, I think we should have a strong, strong tradition of
celebrating both lakes and our rivers like the way we celebrate our National Parks and the way
we celebrate our mountains. We just have neglected water. You know, it's as if the water because
it's scarce, maybe, you know, if you go to, I don't know, Minnesota or you go to any other very
watery place and the water is central to the identity there. But I think the scarcity of water should
make it even that much more important to us.

Spencer [00:51:30] Some somehow it hasn't -.

Professor Handley [00:51:33] Yeah.

Spencer [00:51:34] - become that integral part of Utah. I mean, I do see all the time the "I love
Utah" bumper stickers and people, people do love Utah, but all of that love gets focused on the
mountains and the National Parks, like you said.

Professor Handley [00:51:47] Yeah. But goes back to the - yeah.

Spencer [00:51:47] It's the Great Salt Lake, the Jordan River, the Utah Lake, the Bear River, all
of these places are part of that.

Professor Handley [00:51:55] Yeah.

Spencer [00:51:56] Whether we recognize that or not.

Professor Handley [00:51:58] No, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we, we could end up loving the
wrong thing or - and that's kind of loving that's selfish. I'm going to take the pleasure I get from
skiing or from going mountaineering or canyoneering in southern Utah or mountain biking, but I,
I'm not going to give a fig about, you know, that, that ugly lake or that ugly river or, you know,
it's like, well, you know, I don't know what the analogy is, but that's just like, you know, loving
one thing about your child and hating everything else, right? It's just not, not healthy love.

Spencer [00:52:33] Yeah.

Professor Handley [00:52:33] So there has to be that what we were talking about earlier that
reciprocity there and that giving back in that sense of I need to be contributing to the whole. But
I really think aesthetics can help. I just think recognizing how beautiful that lake is and, and
sometimes photographers and painters can help us do that. Great writers can help us do that, to
sort of open our eyes a little bit and see beauty where we, where we missed it and have a greater
sense of appreciation. And then when that beauty is threatened, it, it hurts, you know, I mean, we
care enough to respond.

Spencer [00:53:10] I think that ties beautifully into the concept of love, is that in my experience,
when you come to love a thing or a person, you - and that love is true, that love is pure and
Christlike love, you come to appreciate all of the parts of it.

Professor Handley [00:53:30] Yeah. Yeah.

Spencer [00:53:31] And so not only would it not be a healthy love for Utah just to for Utahns,
just to look at that traditionally, quote unquote beautiful areas of the National Parks and the
mountains and say, I love Utah, meaning that not only would that not be healthy, it also wouldn't
be Christlike.

Professor Handley [00:53:56] Yeah, I mean, I would go so far as to say it's not love at all, right?
It's, it's selfishness. Yeah, and it's blindness, right? Yeah.

Spencer [00:54:04] Excellent. Well, I've got one final question that ties into that pretty well,
because I don't want to make anyone feel guilty about what we've, what we've invested ourselves
in so far. So I, I think this question is really important for the sake of motivation. Both
environmentally minded and focused people and religiously minded and focused people - in both
of these cultures - it can be really easy to feel like we're not doing enough. We're not doing
enough to save the environment. We're not doing enough to be righteous and good followers of
Christ. And at this intersection of spirituality and environmental action, there may be an even
greater problem of feeling disheartened and saying, "I'm not doing enough to be an
environmental steward."

Professor Handley [00:55:07] Yeah.

Spencer [00:55:09] What would you say to people who feel like they don't measure up to those
ideals?

Professor Handley [00:55:16] That's a great question. Well, I mean, we know about the dangers
of perfectionism, at least I hope we do in our culture, you know, in our American culture at large.
You know, we do ourselves such incredible disservices when we compare ourselves to others,
we compare our self-worth based on really superficial things and harmful things. And we can do
that in a religious context because we, you know, we can't see the good in ourselves. We can't
see the good in other people. So I think we have to be charitable towards ourselves, I think we
have to be charitable towards other people, I think we have to always operate with the
assumption that people are complex and that complexity means that sometimes they're, they're,
you know, more capable of making mistakes than, than they might have imagined. But it also
means they're capable of doing more good than they might have imagined. And, and it's so, it's a
sort of suspension of judgment, really, that we need to have towards one another and towards
ourselves. So I apply those religious principles to my, you know, activism. I mean, there's only
so much I can do in a day. There's only so much I can do in a lifetime. I'm only one person. I
guess the question is, am I a good steward of my resources? And if I'm making mistakes am I
learning from them? Am I growing? Am I remaining hopeful? Because I keep trying. And I think
you despair when you give up, right? And so hope needs to spring eternal, as the saying goes and
it has to, it has to continually generate new effort, but not because we're trying to, you know, win
something or prove something. You know, I can't, I can't, there's so many things I can't change. I
can't change what is happening in D.C. I can't change what, you know, other, in my own loved
ones decide to do with their lives. I have to, I can't control other people and I can't control nature.
But I can decide to be loving. I can decide to be giving. I can decide to be in a willingness to
learn and educate myself. I mean, so I, I do think it's super important and valuable to just decide
that you want to be educated about environmental problems, and the more educated you can
become, the easier it is to identify positive strategies, strategies going forward; it's just too easy
to imagine doomsday without any evidence, or because you just pick up on a headline
somewhere and then you just, you just feel crushed, right? That, that's just, I mean, I don't know,
I'm giving kind of an incoherent answer here, but I mean, one additional thought that I have is do
something rather than nothing.

Spencer [00:58:11] Mm hmm.

Professor Handley [00:58:11] I mean, I felt, I felt very disempowered for many years. And I, you
know, made, I made a number of decisions that changed things for me. One was I decided, I'm
going to read about this, like, I'm going to make it a hobby, to always read about the
environment, about climate change. I just want to learn. So, and I'm, I don't know enough, but I
mean, by golly, if I just start reading now, I got decades. I can read a lot of books by that time, so
why not just start, right? And then it was also like, I can get involved with an organization, a
nonprofit. I can talk to my mayor.

Spencer [00:58:48] Yeah.

Professor Handley [00:58:48] I can do little things. And I started doing little things and they just
kept snowballing. But if you're doing nothing, that's, that, that will eat at you. And that's
probably a good thing. If it eats at you, then it's just at some point, I just woke up and I was like,
"I'm tired of feeling like I'm not doing enough, so I will do more". But once you start doing
things, it actually reverses the psychological effect. It feels like I've always got tomorrow to try
something else. You know, I don't, I don't have to like, measure all of my worth of everything
I'm trying to do based on the impact I'm having by tomorrow afternoon, I can just decide this is
who I am and this is how I want to live my life.

Spencer [00:59:28] Yeah.

Professor Handley [00:59:29] And that's the only thing I can control. So as long as I'm focused
on that and it gives me a sense of integrity, and then when things are really bad, I feel a little
more hopeful just because I'm doing something, you know. Little service projects, a little bit of
writing a letter to the editor, whatever it might take to make me feel like I'm, I'm at least trying to
contribute something positive.

Spencer [00:59:52] Excellent. Thank you so much. I'm so incredibly grateful for this
opportunity. I love the work you're doing and I think it's such an important work.

Professor Handley [01:00:02] Thank you. Thank you.

Spencer [01:00:03] And so really, I can't, can't thank you enough for this opportunity.

Professor Handley [01:00:06] Well these are great questions. You've really thought about this
well, and I really appreciate the interest.

Resources in order of citation:

Environmental Stewardship and Conservation, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/environmental-stewardship-conservation

George B. Handley, Terry B. Ball, and Steven L. Peck, Stewardship and the Creation: LDS
Perspectives on the Environment
https://rsc.byu.edu/book/stewardship-creation

New Global Environmental Studies Program at the Kennedy Center, Emily Nelson, 2023
https://kennedy.byu.edu/newsroom/new-global-environmental-studies-program-at-the-kennedy-
center

Righteous Dominion and Compassion for the Earth, Marcus B. Nash at the 18th Wallace Stegner
Symposium for the Environment at the S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah
https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/elder-nash-stegner-symposium

Our Earthly Stewardship, Gérald Caussé, 2022

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2022/10/31?lang=eng
Push Back Against the World, Dallin H. Oaks, 2017
https://speeches.byuh.edu/commencement/push-back-against-the-world

God’s Love for His Children, M. Russell Ballard, 1988

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1988/04/gods-love-for-his-
children?lang=eng

The Moral Imperative of Environmental Stewardship, Steven E. Snow, 2018

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/the-moral-imperative-of-environmental-
stewardship-elder-steven-e-snow

Christopher W. Waddell at the 28th Wallace Stegner Symposium for the Environment at the S.J.
Quinney College of Law, University of Utah [1:52:00], 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=7FeBCUKdtII&list=PLrfMz_WZNoCYQ7VOv_LjDd3uZzbVgJPBh&index=6&t=986s

John F. Ross, excerpt from The Promise of the Grand Canyon: John Wesley Powell’s Perilous
Journey and his Vision for the American West, 2018
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/visionary-john-wesley-powell-had-
plan-developing-west-nobody-listened-180969182/

Wallace Stegner, Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs

https://www.amazon.com/Where-Bluebird-Sings-Lemonade-Springs/dp/0375759328

Gospel Topics, Environmental Stewardship and Conservation, The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/environmental-stewardship-
and-conservation?lang=eng#p9

Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer

https://www.amazon.com/Braiding-Sweetgrass-Indigenous-Scientific-Knowledge/dp/
1571313567/ref=asc_df_1571313567?tag=bingshoppinga-
20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=80195681206363&hvnetw=o&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvl
ocint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4583795269735063&psc=1

Provo Conservation and Resiliency Plan, 2023

https://www.provo.org/home/showpublisheddocument/22686/638259574403070000

Provo River and Lakeshore Plan, 2023

https://www.provo.org/home/showpublisheddocument/23416/638344432089570000

VIDEO OF THE INTERVIEW

Full-Length:
https://youtu.be/yfnvhJ7sXpU

Digest:
https://youtu.be/fVc5XIay9X8