John Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil Company, took the stage at a packed Mitchell Hall Wednesday evening, and spoke to members of the university community about the world's current energy crisis and the politics of climate change surrounding it.
The program, titled "Achieving Energy Security Through Sound Public Policy," was a part of the Global Agenda 2008 series organized by Communications professor Ralph Begleiter, and featured a lecture by Hofmeister, followed by a question and answer session with members of the audience and viewers streaming on the Internet.
"Transportation is one of the biggest contributors of green-house gasses to our environment," Begleiter said, as he explained the connection between oil prices and the politics of climate change, and told the audience why he invited Hofmeister to speak at the university.
The general theme of Hofmeister's lecture was the paralysis of partisanship, which he described as "a political outcome in which not enough, or nothing happens," and said it is something all Americans are victims of.
Hofmeister began by discussing three realities of the world's energy situation that people have no choice but to live with, and are prime examples of why paralysis of partisanship is unacceptable.
"The demand for energy continues to increase, easy conventional oil is peaking or has peaked and it is more difficult to keep up supplies, and we must deal with carbon restraints going forward" he said.
He said Shell Oil made a commitment to reduce its "carbon footprint" by 2010, and are well within reach of their goal. However, he also pointed out that they are just one company out of many that affect the environment.
Hofmeister said the government works on a bipartisan basis to ensure homeland and economic security, but it does not give energy security as much attention. He said the United States has not had a "comprehensive" energy policy since World War II, and therefore almost no progress is being made to address those three realities.
"When the Democratic Party says, 'let's tax the oil companies for their excess profits so we can put more money into alternative research and development' and the Republican President says, 'No, we will veto such a bill,' that's paralysis of partisanship," Hofmeister said. "Nothing happens."
He concluded the lecture by presenting Shell's 12-point plan, which addresses the supply and demand of energy, as well as the environment in both short and long terms.
The audience reaction to Hofmeister's lecture was mixed, which became evident during the question and answer session.
There was an outburst by a student who disagreed with Hofmeister, but his comments were incomprehensible as he was quickly removed by campus security.
Sophomore Wendee Killmon, who attended the event, stated in an e-mail message that this topic is important to her because of the increasing price of gas.
"It's important to me because the cost of gas is outrageous, and every time I fill up my car, it's painful," Killmon said.
She said she felt neutral about Hofmeister's lecture.
"It just combined a lot of different thoughts that were already out there," Killmon said.
She said she was surprised by some of the figures Hofmeister presented regarding energy consumption.
"He really got my attention with his outrageous statements," Killmon said. "Twenty-one million barrels [per] day and 10,000 gallons [per] second really shocked me. I never knew that we used that much."
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