The land of pioneers, Sundance, and enough salt to callously murder millions of slugs has now become the first state government to move to a 10-hour, four-day work week (to take effect in August).

Gov. Jon Huntsman, Jr. recently made the declaration as an effort to cut heating and cooling costs and to reduce gas consumption.

The Salt Lake Tribune reports:

Huntsman says 16,000 to 17,000 state employees will be affected when the change is implemented. He acknowledges some of those workers will have problems because of child care or transportation issues, but agency heads will be asked to spend the month of July working through those issues. 

"The energy efficiencies are significant that we can achieve," Huntsman said. "When you look at the totality of the needs, this is a good policy moving forward."

Read the current issue of BizVoice magazine (available online today and in the mail to regular subscribers) and you will find the words green, environment and sustainability throughout. The "going green" focus features companies, communities and initiatives related to environmentally friendly products and practices. Global warming is cited as one of the reasons for action by some.

But despite an increase in the attention to global warming, the scientific debate is apparently far from over. The Heartland Institute reports that more than 30,000 scientists signed a petition "rejecting the assertion that global warming has reached a crisis stage and is caused by human activity."

The Heartland article tells one side of the story; numerous resources provide the flip side of the coin. What do you think? How serious is global warming? How big of an impact do human activities have on our environment?