According to one Penn State professor, if automobile carbon dioxide emissions were measured in horse droppings, Americans would be able to cover every road in the United States with an inch of droppings every year.

Evan Pugh professor of geosciences, Richard Alley, was part of a panel of Penn State professors who spoke last night to a group of about 70 community members and students at Schlow Centre Region Library about global climate change.

The forum, "Working Together on Energy and Global Climate Change -- What's in it for the US?" was part of The People Speak Forum series held by the Centre County United Nations Association of the USA, group President Norma Keller said.

Humans are damaging the atmosphere of Earth in many fundamental ways, Alley said, adding that it is a problem that will have to be remedied in the future.

"We are damaging the atmosphere, and it is changing the climate," Alley said.

Jack Matson, a professor of environmental engineering at Penn State, said the solution to the problem of global climate change was easy.

"The answer is simple, we dematerialize," he said.

Matson held up three light bulbs: an incandescent, a fluorescent and a light emitting diode (LED). He said the LED bulb, although more expensive than the others, was about 90 percent efficient, as opposed to the incandescent bulb's much smaller efficiency of five percent. Small changes such as switching the type of light bulb that a person uses in their house can have a tremendous effect on that person's emissions, Matson said.

After the panel delivered their presentations, the forum was opened up to the audience to ask questions. The majority of the audience members' questions asked why there is not a lot of public outcry about global climate change.

Klaus Keller, an assistant professor of geoscience, said although people should be worried about global climate change, they are not because the documented climate change cannot be fully attributed to humans.

"If someone says, 'I'm 30 percent sure a hurricane is coming,' are you packing up and leaving? No," he said.

Joshua Kirby (graduate-instructional systems) said the way people are educated about the issue of global climate change will have to change for it to cause them to adjust their habits.

"People aren't persuaded to change their attitudes easily," he said.