David Trauger, honored by NCR Faculty Association as first speaker in the 'Last' Lecture Series, discusses The Great Transformation: 2001-2030

David L. Trauger, director of the Natural Resources Program and associate dean of the Graduate School was chosen by the National Capital Region Faculty Association to give the first 'Last' Lecture of the Last Lecture Series. Trauger, who is retiring from Virginia Tech after seven years, was presented a plaque by the Faculty Association with "esteem and admiration for his dedication to graduate education and the Virginia Tech community in the National Capital Region."

The Last Lecture Series allows the speaker to choose a topic of his/her choice and present it to an open audience including current and former colleagues, alumni, and friends. Trauger spoke about The Great Transformation: 2001-2030.

He discussed the basis of the doom and gloom scenario repeated over and over by many scientists, environmentalists, and climatologists who claim that collapse is just around the corner and that civilization is coming to an end due mainly to severe climate change and the imminence of peak oil. "We should not underestimate either of these," said Trauger

He quoted statistics from James Gustave Speth's book, The Bridge at the Edge of the World, that already half of the world's tropical and temperate forests are gone; about half of the world's wetlands are gone; an estimated 90 percent of the large predator fish are gone; twenty percent of the corals are gone, and species are disappearing at rates about a thousand times faster than normal.

Speaking to declining oil supply and rising demand, Trauger said that “almost everything is dependent, directly or indirectly, on oil — transportation, agriculture, chemicals, plastics. The down slope of peak oil will be faster due to our total societal dependence on oil and growing competition for oil from the developing world.

"Economic and environmental impacts of peak oil are more imminent and urgent than global climate change and will require a great transformation in strategic thinking," said Trauger. He quoted Richard Heinberg’s book, Peak Everything: Waking Up in the Century of Declines: "Our central survival task for the decades ahead, as individuals and as a species, must be to make a transition away from the use of fossil fuels — and to do this as peacefully, equitably, and intelligently as possible."

As he retires from the university, Trauger says he is leaving a few challenges for Virginia Tech: to increase its support for sustainability efforts, to strengthen its commitment to the growing Natural Resources Program that is graduating desperately-needed professionals, and to sign the Talloires Declaration. Composed in 1990 at an international conference in Talloires, France, the Declaration is a ten-point action plan for incorporating sustainability and environmental literacy in teaching, research, operations, and outreach at colleges and universities. It has been signed by more than 350 university presidents and chancellors in over 40 countries.

Trauger concluded, "I came to Virginia Tech to contribute to the education of the 'Next Generation’ of natural resources professionals. I leave the Natural Resources Program with serious concerns that these students may be the 'Last Generation.' I only hope that leaving a personal legacy will stimulate these students to become the next 'Greatest Generation.'"

Posted May 12, 2008