Global climate change is a threat stemming from human activity that can be solved by worldwide cooperation, said Tony Thompson, a presenter from the Climate Project, said in a Tuesday night speech that was sponsored by ActivUs.

Thompson, an Elkhart native, is a master’s student in strategic leadership toward sustainability at Sweden’s Blekinge Institute of Technology and a trained presenter for the environmental group led by former vice president Al Gore. Thompson told the audience in the Gerdin Building the proof of human-altered climate patterns was nearly universally accepted by the scientific community and illustrated the United States’ relatively large role in carbon emissions.

“I don’t show this to pick on the U.S,. so much as to show what’s really going on,” Thompson said as he brought up a bar graph detailing the United States’ average carbon emissions per person, a value five times that of the world average. “There’s something about our way of thinking that I think we ought to think about.”

Thompson added that United States would not only benefit environmentally, but also economically, should the nation take a more active role in reducing carbon emissions and other energy wastes; Thompson queued up quotes from leaders of companies such as Du Pont and Wal-Mart that echoed that sentiment.

“Do we have to choose between the economy and the environment?” Thompson asked. “Well, there’s some chief executives that are starting to say, ‘Hey, there’s not so much of an either-or here.'”

Thompson said waste is viewed as negative and costly in most instances, whether in regards to business or the environment, and solutions to wastefulness can be attained through cooperation.

He spent a significant amount of the speech detailing what Iowa residents can and have done to increase energy efficiency in regards to both agricultural and urban concerns. The Cool Cities project is a movement of American cities individually adopting the Kyoto Protocol within city limits despite the country’s decline of the measure as a whole. Ames may in fact adopt the policy later this month, pending approval by the City Council.

Ames resident Roger Jacobson said he felt strongly about the threat of global climate change and hopes many others will become concerned as well.

“We’re missing 24,500 people. Where the hell are they?” Jacobson said in regard to the modest crowd of mostly students in Gerdin’s auditorium. “We have to get the word out; we just have to make people aware.”