Global warming key topic of Earth Week
Gabriel Mendoza
Issue date: 4/30/07 Section: News
A former Mt. SAC student and current staff member of the John T. Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies at Cal Poly Pomona spoke of peak oil, climate change, and world population during earth week in Building 9C.
Presented by the Environmental Action Group for a Livable Earth (E.A.G.L.E.) and Associated Students, speaker Matt West spoke to group of about forty students.
The graduate of Cal Poly Pomona said that our said the world is currently consuming more oil than it is producing.
Doing a presentation in PowerPoint, West displayed the Hubbert's curve to students.
Hubbert's curve predicted that the U.S. would reach its peak oil production in the 70s, while peak world production would occur sometime in the early 2000s.
Some feel that Hubberts's curve accurately predicted the 1973 oil crisis and can explain today's oil crisis.
"We have set up ourselves up for a nasty fall," West said.
West likened the world's consumption oil to a giant science experiment that has unpredictable results. "Nobody knows what's going to happen," he added.
But the automotive, meat, and steel industry are dependent on oil, and these industries contribute to global warming, said West.
Eventually the consequences of global warming were discussed.
Desertification is the turning of land into arid and eventually inhospitable area. Climate changed caused by global warming could eventually make most of the U.S. inhospitable.
World population is also a problem, West said.
He said that the world is exceeding its carrying capacity and automotive, meat, and steel industries can be linked to the rise in global population. As the population rises the need for such industry increases.
"This is a pattern that we can no way continue," West said.
Declining oil production could have disastrous effects on the U.S. economy.
The U.S. economy has no limits for growth, but its growth is directly related to natural resources. And those natural resources are limited.
"When those resources peter out the economy will follow," West said.
In slide shown by West, the U.S. Department of Energy in March 2005 said, "as peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and without timely mitigation, the economic, social and political costs will be unprecedented."
Near the end of his presentation, West said that that future is not all "doom and gloom."
"We at a very unique period in time. Where were you when peak oil happened?" West said.
Presented by the Environmental Action Group for a Livable Earth (E.A.G.L.E.) and Associated Students, speaker Matt West spoke to group of about forty students.
The graduate of Cal Poly Pomona said that our said the world is currently consuming more oil than it is producing.
Doing a presentation in PowerPoint, West displayed the Hubbert's curve to students.
Hubbert's curve predicted that the U.S. would reach its peak oil production in the 70s, while peak world production would occur sometime in the early 2000s.
Some feel that Hubberts's curve accurately predicted the 1973 oil crisis and can explain today's oil crisis.
"We have set up ourselves up for a nasty fall," West said.
West likened the world's consumption oil to a giant science experiment that has unpredictable results. "Nobody knows what's going to happen," he added.
But the automotive, meat, and steel industry are dependent on oil, and these industries contribute to global warming, said West.
Eventually the consequences of global warming were discussed.
Desertification is the turning of land into arid and eventually inhospitable area. Climate changed caused by global warming could eventually make most of the U.S. inhospitable.
World population is also a problem, West said.
He said that the world is exceeding its carrying capacity and automotive, meat, and steel industries can be linked to the rise in global population. As the population rises the need for such industry increases.
"This is a pattern that we can no way continue," West said.
Declining oil production could have disastrous effects on the U.S. economy.
The U.S. economy has no limits for growth, but its growth is directly related to natural resources. And those natural resources are limited.
"When those resources peter out the economy will follow," West said.
In slide shown by West, the U.S. Department of Energy in March 2005 said, "as peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and without timely mitigation, the economic, social and political costs will be unprecedented."
Near the end of his presentation, West said that that future is not all "doom and gloom."
"We at a very unique period in time. Where were you when peak oil happened?" West said.
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