www.eptrail.com/news/2008/jul/03/gambling-future-planet -
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Published on: 7/3/2008
Last Visited: 7/4/2008
The times they gotta be a-changin' and there are opportunities galore â€" Dr. George Stone
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Stone teaches geology, mineralogy, climatology and energy issues at the Milwaukee Area Technical College and serves on the board of directors of the YMCA of the Rockies.
While Dylan and Stone both call for change, Stone holds out hope and the possibility for forward-thinking entrepreneurs to become millionaires, while solving the energy-climate problem.
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As Stone sees it, two trends are converging to force a "major, major transition in the way humankind uses energy" â€" the cost of energy and global warming.
His speech, referring to the "third energy revolution," includes the first two â€" the harnessing of fire and the Industrial Revolution, and the eventual transitioning away from the dependence on fossil fuels.
"We're in the early stages of a truly historic transformation," he said.
He is delivering his third speech in six years on the topic at the YMCA.
"My whole purpose is to raise awareness," he said."There's been a big change even in the last two years in both the energy crisis and global warming.People still don't grasp the huge magnitude and the short timeframe (with which we're dealing)."
Although it's an historic change and it's coming, Stone is perhaps more optimistic than the acerbic Dylan.
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Whatever the results of the November election, Stone said the politicians will have to take this battle into account and "we'll see major changes."
The presidential candidates, he said, have been following the California model on global warming solutions â€" promoting a reduction of 80-percent greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 (Democrat), and 60-percent reduction by 2050 (Republican).
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U.S. oil production peaked in 1970, according to Stone.
"We found the big and easy fields," he said.
Since then, the supply has depleted and is hard to find.In those days, we imported 25 percent of our oil; now, it is 75 percent, he said.
However, it's a fallacy to assume offshore and Alaskan drilling are the answers.
"It wouldn't change the trend at all," Stone asserts."It will make the oil companies more money, but it won't solve the energy crisis at all."
Along with top NASA climate expert Dr. James Hansen, Stone says that fossil fuels will run out, anyway, so why not start now to transition, when you can also mitigate global warming.
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Stone said Hansen has warned we have "less than a decade to get greenhouse gas emissions under control, otherwise a whole series of natural feedbacks will kick in. We're at a tipping point.
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Lest people think the process is all cyclical and that 30 years ago, we were concerned about the polar icecaps taking over the planet, Stone said, "This is not cyclical."
Cores in the ice in Antarctica and Greenland have been measured â€" 800,000 years of ice.
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The climate had started to cool in the 1960s and 1970s, Stone said, because of environmental controls, but global warming has been continuing.
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Stone, who spent his first 12 summers at Estes Park at his family's cabin near the YMCA, said geologists know a lot about energy resources and past climate.He received his Ph.D. in geology at CU.He will be attending an International Geology Congress in Oslo, Norway, in August and in October, he will be co-chairing a two-part technical session at the 2008 GSA Joint Annual Meeting in Houston on Global Warming Science: Implications for Geoscientists, Educators, and Policy Makers.
Stone has been interested in climate change ever since he took a graduate course in marine geology at the University of Miami from Cesare Emiliani, a distinguished pioneer in the study of paleotemperatures.During the past decade, Stone's professional focus has been on the interrelationships of energy and climate.He has long recognized and called attention to global warming as humanity's foremost challenge of the 21st century.
It's a fact that: the atmosphere is warming (measurements taken); and the sea surface is rising (measurements taken).
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Stone admits the whole thing is complicated.People should remember that all things are connected, he said.
"The pine beetle is enough of a problem to get local attention," he said.
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Stone encourages people to "take chances" and invest in the emerging energy technologies.
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