SAN FRANCISCO — Climate change, new environment-saving technologies, and corporate and policy solutions to the dire circumstances facing the globe were discussed at the fifth annual Asia Society of Northern California Dinner on April 19 at the Four Seasons Hotel by award honorees Steven Chu, Peter Darbee and George Lucas.
“Unique is that these are major public figures representing three completely different worlds. … But all three have become major contributors in the search for a more sustainable global environmental model,” the organization’s executive director Bruce Pickering said.
Chu, the education award honoree, is a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and professor at Cal, and director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He was optimistic about how research and new technologies can be a determining factor in saving the environment, citing past success from research beginning in the 1960s with the introduction of the green revolution, which saved the lives of a half-billion people from starvation due to groundbreaking research and the development of artificial fertilizer.
Chu highlighted the importance of a well-integrated economy, focusing on scientific research and the successful development of powerful new batteries, superior storage systems, and improved energy transmission to distances that would enable power to be efficiently transported over thousands of miles.
Said Chu of China, in particular, “We need to give them the tools and technologies,” enabling the country to “leapfrog” past mistakes made by the United States and Europe.
George Lucas, chairman of Lucasfilm Ltd., stated bluntly: “Sustainability is about how we survive, not how the planet survives.” He mentioned being annoyed by the arrogance of humanity, since the globe can easily outlast people.
Chu added a spin to the urgent call to action. “The American public doesn’t know what the risks are. At 50 percent certainty, with these catastrophic consequences before us, you’ve got to do something.”
PG&E CEO Darbee voiced what Asian Americans and other citizens can do by stating succinctly, “My message to you all is to press your policymakers. The cost will only go up.
Steve Westly, CEO and founder of the Westly Group, facilitated. Jack Wadsworth and Chong-Moon Lee, dinner co-chairmen and Asia Society of Northern California Advisory Board members, introduced the honorees.
Asia Society Awards
George Lucas
Peter Darbee
Steve Chu