Every year, Gustavus Adolphus College in tiny St. Peter, MN holds a Nobel Conference, authorized by the Nobel Foundation of Stolkhom, Sweden. The conference brings together renowned experts to discuss timely issues, like aging or globalization. This year, it was “Heating Up: The Energy Debate.”

I attended the two-day event, which delivered in its round-up of impressive energy and global warming experts: Nobel Laureate in Physics Dr. Stephen Chu, biofuels expert Dr. Lee Rybeck Lynd, peak oil expert Ken Deffeyes, economist Paul L. Joskow, polar explorer Will Steger, hydrogen expert Joan M. Ogden, and James Hansen, Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

While at times the science got a bit thick, the message from all of the lecturers was clear: Global warming is urgent, we need to do something NOW, and many different solutions will get us there.

I was most interested to hear from Paul L. Joskow, an MIT economist who discussed the best methods for regulating carbon dioxide (CO2), a major contributor to global warming. Many politicians favor a cap-and-trade policy, in which a limit on CO2 is determined and then tradable/sellable permits to pollute are issued to utilities and industry. Economists, on the other hand, generally prefer a carbon tax that simply taxes CO2 at a certain rate.

Although an economist himself, Joskow argued that a cap-and-trade policy is the best way to create a market for CO2 and drive down emissions. First of all, a cap-and-trade policy is politically feasible, and making sure it actually has a chance of passing Congress in our lifetime is the most important thing to slowing global warming. Secondly, a cap-and-trade plan links the U.S. with other nations (and other states) that have already started down this path, thus creating a global solution to a global problem.

While economists favor a carbon tax that the feds could ideally use to cut taxes in another area, like income, Joskow said “perfect the enemy of good.” Sure, in a perfect world we would tax bad stuff and never tax good stuff (like working). But the urgency of global warming calls for a good system that is feasible now and gets us in sync with the rest of the planet. And the best system for that is a cap-and-trade policy.

Joan M. Ogden lectured on a hydrogen economy, although her fellow panel discussion presenters were skeptical of using hydrogen as a fuel source, at least in terms of it being ready fast enough to fight global warming. Although no option should be taken off the table, hydrogen could play a more important role in bettering existing technologies (like ethanol production) rather than creating an entirely new infrastructure.

Dr. James Hansen – you may remember him from his accusations that NASA officials edited his global warming reports – said that if someone is seriously concerned about climate change, any elected official they vote for should agree on three principals:

1) A moratorium on traditional coal-fired power plants (until we can sequester the CO2, building more plants moves us backwards)

2) Policies that encourage more renewable energy

3) Incentives for energy efficiency.

With the clean technology here but the leadership lacking, the issue of urgency was paramount throughout the lectures. In fact, I thought the statistics and scenarios put forth more dire than those I normally read in the media. More than one expert prefaced a recommendation with something like, ‘A year ago I would’ve been laughed out of the room for saying this, but now I can say that what we need to do is…’ The extensive media attention on global warming, along with some serious dialogue and action by the business sector and politicians, have made it “safer” to talk about the true consequences and costs of global warming without immediately being labeled a nutcase.

For example, MIT economist Paul L. Joskow said that any sort of carbon regulation is going to raise our utility bills “and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.” With a cap-and-trade policy that sets CO2 at $50 per ton (a price he thinks is likely), it could drive up utility bills 40-50%. But this would not happen over night: Any measure passed by Congress would give utilities several years to implement efficiency programs to soften the landing. But the message was still clear: This isn’t going to be easy, but we can do it.

Polar explorer Will Steger, who has been traveling and studying the arctic and Antarctic regions for 40 years, gave an eyewitness account of global warming’s effects at the poles (in May I interviewed him about his most recent trip). I’d heard his talk several times, but there was a big difference this time: He showed a slide of polar bear and then said in his quiet-but no-BS –sort-of-way, “This is our friend the polar bear. I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do for them – they will go extinct. I couldn’t say that 18 months ago to people, but now I am.”

Despite the wake up calls – no use in sugarcoating at this point – it was still uplifting to know that some of the planet’s smartest people are working on this and elected leaders are slowly getting the message.

Now, it’s time for the rest of us to get to work. For starters, check out Will Steger’s “Template for Action,” Lighter Footstep’s “10 First Steps,” or the Union of Concerned Scientist’s “How You Can be Involved.”

Courtesy of WillSteger.com

Will Steger, famed polar explorer whose feats include the first confirmed dogsled journey to the North Pole without re-supply, the longest unsupported dogsled expedition in history (1,600 mile south-north traverse of Greenland), and the first dogsled traverse of Antarctica, is now on a new mission. He is an eyewitness to the impacts of global warming, both in the Polar Regions and in his home state of Minnesota. A former science teacher, he has set out to educate people on global warming and the solutions needed to slow it. He returned last week from a four-month trek by dogsled across Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic to interview the Inuit people, who have had to adapt quickly to a new lifestyle because of climate change. Steger will use these interviews to produce a documentary later this year.

I spoke with Will by phone on May 15th. He was in Iglulik, Nunavut; the last stop of his expedition.

Green Options: You’ve traveled both Polar Regions extensively and have documented how climate change is drastically changing their landscapes. What was different about this trip?

Will Steger: This was a new route for me because this was a cultural expedition. We specifically planned the route so we could visit as many villages and talk with as many people along the way as possible. We know global warming is happening and we want to put a human face on it. So we spent a lot of time in villages. Our team included myself, three team members, and three 50- or 60-year-old Inuit hunters. We talked with hundreds of people.

Baffin Island, where I traveled, is like ground zero of global warming because there’s an intact culture that relies very heavily on their surroundings to survive. Changes are noticed almost immediately. Up here, global warming is showing itself most drastically out on the sea ice. As the earth warms, 80 percent of that energy goes into the ocean, which then affects the ice cover. The Inuit are seeing the ice freeze six weeks later, along with earlier break ups of the ice. Generally, the Inuit have had about 8 months where they are able to travel on the ice to hunt, and now that’s cut down to 5 or 6 months. That’s a 25 percent reduction in the amount of time they have to hunt out on the ice, which acts like an extension of their land.

GO: Are the Inuit angry? It is industrialized countries’ pollution that has caused this.

WS: Everyone is talking about global warming up here, there’s no denial about it. But the Inuit are forgiving people. Many of them aren’t worried about it because they can’t change it, and they don’t worry about things they can’t change. They understand that the polluters are industrialized nations, but in general they don’t harbor a lot of anger. They wish we would change, but they’re pretty easy going.

But we still have to take responsibility. Our way of consuming energy is really causing this, and we need to change to avoid the worst of the consequences.

GO: You’ve documented the changes up there before; did anything surprise you about this trip?

WS: Let me first say that no single event “proves” global warming. Global warming is an accumulation of changes happening over time. That said, I did see an effect that really surprised me, and everyone up there was talking about it: There is a large sound called Cumberland Sound. It’s about 50 miles wide and 125 miles long, and we were going to cross it on this expedition. But the ice broke up from the swells from a super storm in the North Atlantic. Everyone was talking about that. So we had to go around it, which was an extra 75 miles. That’s not a major hardship for the team, but it is for the Inuit communities because they depend on the sound for commercial fishing. Now it has shattered the fishing industry. It isn't just abou the environment; it’s the fact that it affects the economy and survival of this entire community.

Another impact really struck me. There’s a place up here they call the “land where ice never melts.” Well, it is melting. The glaciers are shrinking. That was incredibly powerful to see.

GO: Seeing all these impacts from climate change, was this trip depressing or invigorating?

WS: Neither. It was reaffirming: We were ground-truthing the science.

You have to understand that this Inuit culture does not think the way we do. Their world is close to the land. They talk in minute details of the changes in the salt in the sea ice, details that aren’t even in the climate change models. You rely on a lot of satellite info up here, but there aren’t a lot of scientists.

GO: How do the Inuit talk about global warming?

WS: Many of the elders will say the earth’s axis has changed because the sun is rising in a different place. But what’s really happening is that, because our warming planet causes more water to be absorbed up into the atmosphere, they are seeing a diffraction of the sun. It’s like an optical illusion caused by global warming. They also say that the sky color has changed: it’s now a whitish blue in the winter rather than a deep blue. In the wintertime up here, the sun doesn’t rise. But now the Inuit say the light is getting brighter in the winter. Again, the water vapor is diffracting the light in the atmosphere, making it seem lighter.

GO: What are your next steps after you return to the States?

WS: We have a lot of film from our expedition up here. We’ll be heading out to Los Angeles to start producing the documentary. In the summer, we’ll be back up to Baffin Island to do more interviews with the elders.

I’m also back on the global warming campaign trail in November, along with Fresh Energy, an energy policy organization with which I partner. We’ll be educating folks on solutions, specifically speaking a lot with congregations in the faith community.

Governor Tim Pawlenty appointed me to sit on Minnesota’s Climate Change Advisory Group. I’m working with about 50 other people from industry, environmental groups, local and tribal governments, transportation, and agriculture to develop a climate change action plan for the state.

I’ll also be working more with high school students, which I’m very excited about. They must feel empowered to fight this. They’re not taking on the challenge yet, but I think it’s going to happen soon, and I want to be part of it. I want to do now what we did 30 years ago during the Vietnam War; create a movement with young people. That’s when we’re going to see real change.

Cross posted at Maria Energia