Aspen Global Change Institute

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Our Energy Challenge

According to the late Nobel Prize winning Richard Smalley, energy is the number one challenge facing humanity. In this engaging and thought-provoking lecture, Smalley explains that acquiring sustainable, renewable sources of energy will not only alleviate a growing energy crisis, but will help solve other world issues, such as water, terrorism, and health. In this 2003 lecture, Smalley presents his vision for our energy future, which focuses on the transition to renewable sources of energy by developing cost-effective technologies that capture solar, wind, and geothermal energy. Drawing from his professional experience, Smalley argues that advances in nanotechnology are the key to achieving a sustainable energy future. Recorded 8 July 2003.

Warming Temperatures Keep Pace to Decade's End

A new study of up-to-date global surface temperature data concludes that temperatures in the past decade have continued to rise at a pace as fast as was witnessed in the previous two decades. The results published in Reviews of Geophysics by NASA scientist Jim Hansen, et al were corrected for urban heat island and other corrections to the instrumental record. In the paper, the authors draw attention to many striking observations, including the fact that a record high of the 12-month running mean of global average temperatures was reached in 2010. Data used in this analysis spans 1880-2010 and draws on 6300 land-based measurement stations as well as a mixture of satellite and ship and buoy measurements to gauge sea surface temperatures. A summary and full text version of the paper are available through the links below.

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Our Energy Challenge

Warming Temperatures Keep Pace to Decade's End