“This is achievable,” climate scientist Jeffrey Greenblatt assured his audience at the Stegner Center's annual symposium Friday. “This is achievable with current technology.”

Greenblatt's presentation is one of more than a dozen on the theme: “Alternative Energy: Seeking Climate Change Solutions.”

The discussion concludes today with a keynote speech by author Bill McKibben at the Marriott University Park in Salt Lake City. And, in typical fashion, this 13th-annual gathering is examining the subject on a variety of fronts.

Terry Root, a lead author of the Nobel Prize-winning International Panel on Climate Change report, spoke Friday about the alarming impact climate change is having on species diversity.

Other presentations focused on carbon-capturing technology, nuclear energy and the prospects for wind energy.

Lincoln Davies, a law professor at the University of Utah, talked about the need to rethink the way Americans regulate energy, the environment and, soon, climate change.

He told how, even though presidents from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush have recognized the nation's need for a meaningful energy policy, the system remains broken.

And, still, the nation devotes just a small portion of its research funding on alternative energy, Davies said. About $1 is spent on alternative energy research and development for every $3 spent on fossil fuel and nuclear energy, he said.

Greenblatt, of the group Environmental Defense, discussed the “wedge” concept of dealing with climate change. He offered specific ideas about how to use that system, by supplanting about 40 percent of new coal-generated energy over the next four decades with increased wind power, for instance.

Doing that, along with improvements in vehicle and transportation efficiency and other energy-saving practices, can accomplish the greenhouse gas reductions necessary to slow global warming.

fahys@sltrib.com