I attended my MBA class of 1957 reunion on October 12-14, 2007 in Palo Alto California. Our class had about 200 entering first year students and there are 47 deceased members at this date. We have all mellowed and were all happy to be in attendance. The usual discussion about “How is your health?" brought up the subjects of stents, open heart surgeries, cancer, loss of spouses, and much more. It was not depressing because we were all glad to be among the living.

The three days included several panels. The most attended panel had as a subject “Courting Disaster-The fight for Oil, Water, and a Healthy Planet.” The participants were retired General John Abizaid now a member of the Hoover Institution, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, John Bryson, chairman, president and CEO of Edison International, Thomas Friedman, three time Pulitzer Prize Winner, John Hennessy, Stanford University President, and Pamela Matson, Dean of the School of Earth Sciences, Professor of Environmental Studies. The moderator was journalist Carlos Watson, formerly with CNN.

I was expecting some long range answers to our energy shortages but heard only about the need for alternative fuels, and technology for addressing our problems of climate change. Al Gore was praised for his work on global warming. It should be noted that Mr. Gore donated $1.5 million to the Alliance for Climate Protection in Palo Alto, California. There was no mention of nuclear energy nor drilling in the USA in areas that contain substantial amounts of oil. They skipped over the needs of today and the next 10 years as if we can just wait for the technology to evolve. My feeling was that their approach was naïve and gave too much credit to human caused global warming. I rather suspected to hear the “ivory tower” approach and got it. However, it is always educational to hear from the “intelligentsia” to receive another opinion.

My hope is that our class can get together for the 55th reunion in 2012.

Gary E. Marsella

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