Moving toward a post-petroleum world
April 13, 2006
KOKOMO, Ind.—Overuse and abuse of natural resources not only affects how we live now; it might also damage our future and our contact with the past. That’s the message Professor of Botany Gary E. Dolph, Ph.D., will deliver in his Last Lecture “Nature: Then and Now,” on Thursday, April 20, in the Indiana University Kokomo Art Gallery. Open to the public, the free presentation begins at 6 p.m.
Dolph’s talk will touch on both his research into and his personal experiences of ecological deterioration, which he believes is tied to population growth and extreme consumption of resources.
“As our population has grown, so has our encroachment on areas of both natural beauty and historic significance,” Dolph said. “As a boy, my father indulged my great weakness for history by allowing me to choose a site to visit on vacation each summer. I can recall going to Fort William Henry on Lake George in New York, when the initial archaeological investigations were underway, as well as to any number of Civil War sites in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. I was fortunate to visit these sites before commercialism destroyed much of their beauty.
“The woods that I knew so well in upstate New York have been sold and lumbered,” he said. “The lakes where I fished are all so polluted that the fish are no longer safe to eat. When I came to Indiana, I carried out research in Hamilton County before I-465 was built. Urban sprawl has now covered much of that area.”
More recently, Dolph’s research has focused on worldwide consumption of petroleum. “Data available from British Petroleum, the U.S. Department of Energy, and The Oil and Gas Journal indicate that this scare and most precious of fossil fuels will soon be in short supply,” Dolph said. “Hydrogen fuel cells, wind energy, and solar power are technologies that may be too slow in deploying to offer us much help in the next 10 to 20 years, just as the oil flow peters out. Regardless of what one feels on the subject, nuclear energy might be forced upon us as a prime source for energy.
“The time to become stewards of the earth is now.”
Dolph’s talk is the final offering in a yearlong series of “Last Lectures” by present and former faculty members, celebrating IU Kokomo’s 60th Anniversary.
Persons without campus parking passes should follow the signs for special event parking for this lecture.
