In this fifth installment of our on-going series of interviews with some of the leading thinkers and scientists on the subject of energy, we interview Martin Hoffert.

Facing and solving the multiple issues concerning energy is the single most pressing problem that we face as a species. There is a lot of media coverage about energy, alternative energy and global warming, but what has been missing is the knowledge and point of view of scientists, at least in the main stream media. If you have missed the first four interviews, please scroll down the right side of the page and click on ‘Scientists – Interviews’.

Martin I. Hoffert is Professor Emeritus of Physics and former Chair of the Department of Applied Science at New York University.  He is a member of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and was elected fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).  I met Marty at the Foundation for the Future’s Energy Conference a couple of months ago and was struck by his passionate outspokenness on the energy issues confronting the world today.  Whether it was due to his emeritus stature, which allows him to speak without an institutional filter or just his nature, he was one of the most passionate and delightfully opinionated scientists at the conference.  Enjoy the following interview with Marty.

Please note that at the end of the interview there are two links from YouTube that feature Marty.  I strongly recommend that you …

Fifteen years ago, when Americans went shopping and came across the  phrase “Made in China” it usually was on small, inexpensive trinkets, toys and souvenirs.  Ten years ago we started to see these words on apparel.  Five years ago we started to see these words seemingly everywhere.  During the last five months, if we saw these words it might have meant the death of our pets, food borne illness or perhaps poisoning. [My favorite editorial cartoon on this subject showed two people holding the same product.  One was saying “A great dessert topping!”  The other saying “Cleans even the toughest stains”].

The Chinese government of course has taken this issue very seriously as the avalanche of billions of dollars of exports is being put at risk.  Doing what they have historically done, they executed the former government official who had been the head of the State Food and Drug Administration for taking bribes and looking the other way on issues of safety and product production. In the last week they have also closed down the companies that have shipped poisonous products overseas. We certainly need to hold the Chinese accountable for any and all defective and life threatening products that make it to the U.S.  The historical levels of government oversight in the production of goods, be it labor conditions or product quality is much lower in China, and many other developing countries for that matter, than in the U.S.

The larger context through which this issue must be viewed is that …

It is important to realize that the way we power our vehicles today is based on the legacy of energy discoveries of the 1800s.  Oil was first taken out of the ground in Pennsylvania in the 1860s.  When the automobile industry came into being some four decades later, petroleum was the first candidate for the energy source.  Even though the quintessential American inventor Thomas Edison did build an electric car, electricity was not as wide spread as it soon would be, so the power of the Rockefeller oil cartel won the day.

Today we are using the energy source discovered 150 years ago to get us to work and to the grocery store.  Do we use candles to light our homes?  Do we use tubes to power our radios and TVs?  Do we cool our houses with blocks of ice?  No, no and no!  So why do we continue to blindly define transportation energy on an 150 year old discovery that we know is causing climate change, funding terrorism and is in finite supply?

In the last few decades, Western Science has, as it has penetrated ever smaller particles, come to the conclusion that everything is energy.  Taking a look at energy from this point of view it strikes me as incredibly narrow to think of fuel, or energy as fossil fuel. That is just a small slice of what is available. If everything is energy then let’s look elsewhere, everywhere.

There are people around the world who are doing just that.  A …

In this fourth installment of our on-going series of interviews with some of the leading thinkers and scientists on the subject of energy, we interview William H. Calvin, PhD.

Facing and solving the multiple issues concerning energy is the single most pressing problem that we face as a species. There is a lot of media coverage about energy, alternative energy and global warming, but what has been missing is the knowledge and point of view of scientists, at least in the main stream media. If you have missed the first three interviews, please scroll down the right side of this blog and click on ‘Scientists – Interviews’.

William H.Calvin is a theoretical neurobiologist, Affiliate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle. I had the good fortune to meet Bill at the Future of Energy conference hosted by the Foundation for the Future several months ago. I have also had the pleasure to read excerpts of his upcoming book “Global Fever: How to Treat Climate Change”, a book that could well become a classic as it frames the conversation and offers up a strategy and vision to effectively deal with Climate Change. He is the author of a dozen books, mostly for general readers, about brains and evolution. The latest is A Brief History of the Mind: From Apes to Intellect and Beyond . 1.Evolutionshift.com: Bill, thank you for sending me a chapter of your new book: “Global Fever: …