Nobel Laureates Speak Out on Global Warming!

Nobel Laureates Speak Out on Global Warming!

I just read an interesting article in the San Francisco Chronicle.  Six Nobel Laureates spoke recently at UC Berkeley on the ways and means of battling global warming. The general consensus is that with all the technology our fight against global warming is futile if we the people aren’t doing our part:

 ”Science is not the problem,” said Donald Glaser, a UC Berkeley physics professor who won the Nobel Prize in 1960. “We can certainly build fuel-efficient cars. (But) year after year, Congress has refused to improve the mileage requirements for automobiles. We have to get together as a democracy and get our government to make changes.”

I think this notion can apply to other things as well.  I have since changed out all the light bulbs in my home to cfl’s.  All my appliances are energy star-rated, and I’m saving up to change my toilets to dual-flush.  All in an effort to conserve and try to do my part .  This article reassured me that even the little things we do make a difference, and collectively we can have a huge impact!

The one befuddling thing was the belief that nuclear energy will be our saving grace in the end.  Is this true?  I am not as knowledgeable on nuclear energy as I am on solar or wind power.  Professor Smoot does make a good point when he says nuclear technology is the one thing we can produce at the scale that we need, but is the ”manufacturing” of this form of energy worse than the energy itself?  Will the end result of nuclear energy justify the means in which it is made?