The winner of this year's presidential race will have to address the ominous question of global warming.
Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain have said they recognize the importance of climate change and reducing America's dependence on foreign oil, but they have different solutions to the problem.
Zachary Sharp, UNM professor of Earth and planetary sciences, said global warming is the most important long-term issue facing humanity.
"It sounds really extreme, but really the consequences of doing nothing about global warming are really terrifying," he said.
Sharp said neither McCain nor Obama have done a good job of outlining substantive energy reform.
But that could change if the electorate pressed the issue, he said.
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"They both have pretty much ignored it," he said. "It's not the candidates' fault so much as the people are not expecting or interested in hearing about it right now. They are talking about other things, and the environment is not on people's minds."
McCain said he would focus alternative energy resources on nuclear power and present a plan to build 45 nuclear power plants immediately.
"We have to have nuclear power," he said in the third presidential debate. "We have to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much. It's wind, tide, solar, natural gas, nuclear, offshore drilling, which Sen. Obama has opposed."
Obama said he has never opposed offshore drilling and sees it as one of many potential alternative energy sources.
"I think that we should look at offshore drilling and implement it in a way that allows us to get some additional oil," Obama said in the debate. "But understand, we only have 3 to 4 percent of the world's oil reserves, and we use 25 percent of the world's oil, which means that we can't drill our way out of the problem."
Gary Weissman, professor of environmental science, said there has been controversy over the candidates' support of nuclear energy as a viable alternative.
He said nuclear energy won't be useful until the U.S. finds a way to safely store nuclear waste.
"Nuclear scares a lot of people, just because when you talk about nuclear energy, you think Chernobyl and you think the nuclear bomb," Weissman said. "Right now, we don't have anywhere to throw that nuclear waste. It's at nuclear facilities all across the country, and we don't know what to do with it."
McCain said fear of nuclear power is unfounded.
"Look, we've sailed Navy ships around the world for 60 years with nuclear power plants on them," McCain said in the third debate. "We can store and reprocess spent nuclear fuel ... no problem."
Jeff Zumwalt, an associate director in UNM's Physical Plant Department, said global warming has shifted energy concerns away from the economy and toward the environment.
"In recent years, we've gained an appreciation of the other costs related to energy - specifically environmental and political costs," he said. "The next president will be faced with the challenge of quantifying these other costs so that they can be given equal consideration."
Crystal Sanchez contributed to this report.
McCain:
Job-creation program with renewable energy
Climate change is real; nuclear power is nothing to fear
Support wind, tide, solar, gas and coal energy
Obama:
$15 billion to free U.S. from foreign oil in 10 years
Drilling is a stop-gap measure, not a long-term solution.
$150 billion over 10 years to establish a green-energy sector
