While humans may have created global warming, the problem is too significant to be solved by lifestyle changes, said Dr. Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences, to an audience almost filling Lab Sciences 300 to capacity Monday afternoon.

Cicerone, who was introduced by Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton to the researchers, students and other members of the Washington University community in attendance, said the problem of global warming will not go away on its own.

And while individual people may try to make a difference, he doubts that such small steps will be sufficient.

“I’m more optimistic about science and technology as the solution than human behavior; I don’t think human behavior is going to change fast enough, and I think science and technology can, but I don’t know how fast,” Cicerone said.

He said that while the issue of global warming has become politicized over the past few election cycles, the science alone necessitates that tangible solutions be pursued.

“I think the clarity of the science is improving, partly because the changes are accelerating—they’re getting easier to see. But in terms of solutions, I don’t see much commitment yet, even with the relatively easy targets out there, [such as] money to be saved with energy efficiencies. There’s just not as much out there as I would have expected,” he said.

Cicerone noted that while people should be worried about the consequences of humanity’s environmental recklessness, no one knows exactly what these consequences will be or when they will appear.

“Continued dependence on fossil fuels is eventually going to lead to a very serious problem; we don’t know exactly what, but we have to get started changing our energy [sources],” he said

He said that those who remain skeptical of global warming are consistently losing footing as the research becomes progressively clearer.

“Physical principles do explain the [globe’s] warming; it’s the added greenhouse gasses. At this point, there is no other viable explanation. Not only does [the model] fit, not only do the numbers work, but there is no other viable explanation that anybody has suggested yet. And I can tell you I wake up many mornings trying to,” Cicerone said. “Scientists don’t achieve much by simply confirming what other people have always found, so there are always people trying to be skeptical…and come up with other ideas. And it’s 35 years now where nothing has worked.”

Members of the undergraduate Pathfinder program in environmental sustainability were in attendance. Many said they were pleased with how well the lecture consolidated and built off of much of what they had learned from the University.

“I took a bunch of environmental classes last semester and what was said in the lecture, it was exactly what I was taught in class. It made me feel like Wash. U. is really nailing the climate change issue,” freshman Allison Karp said. “And it also was nice to hear from someone from the [National Academy of Sciences]…because that’s basically the authority on the subject. The lecture was great.”

“I’ve learned about most of this information before but he presented it in a really good way for the public,” freshman Orma Ravindranath said. “I thought that some of the analogies he used were really good.”

Freshman Chris Thom said he was interested with how Cicerone went past the environmental research to discuss the issues of security and financial cost related to pursuing sustainable technology.

“I found that very interesting because normally it’s just the science perspective but he also put a bit of an economics twist on it towards the end—which [as] an environmentalist you try to ignore, but really you need to look at,” he said.