SAN DIEGO - The world cannot afford to wait for a brilliant technological breakthrough to solve global warming, a student of energy said at a forum on climate change and energy Tuesday in Mission Valley.

"I worry a little bit that we are being blinded by the light at the end of the tunnel," said Scott Anders, director of the Energy Policy Initiatives Center at the University of San Diego School of Law.

It could be many years, Anders said, before a bright solution, such as a new energy source, emerges with the potential to substantially curb the greenhouse gas emissions believed to be causing the planet to warm. In the meantime, the region, state and nation should do all they can now to address a problem that will only worsen with delay, he said.

Indeed, it is unlikely that good old American ingenuity will deliver a perfect cure for the problem, said Irene Stillings, executive director of the California Center for Sustainable Energy in San Diego.

"There is no silver bullet," Stillings said.

That is not to say that technology shouldn't play a role in the campaign to cool the mercury, said Charles Kennel, professor of atmospheric science at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

"Going back to the Stone Age is not an option," Kennel said. "We got ourselves into this, we can get ourselves out of it."

Stillings and Anders made the comments at a forum on climate change and California's landmark 2006 law requiring power plants and factories to slash greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels. A total of four people participated Tuesday morning in a panel discussion sponsored by the San Diego County Taxpayers Association at a Mission Valley hotel. The discussion was attended by 150 people.

Hundreds of scientists hold the view that the Earth is warming in large part because of a thickening blanket of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, in the atmosphere.

Like a blanket that holds one's body heat in at night, the gases trap much of the sun's heat that otherwise would escape into space.

At the same time, there are dissenters in the scientific community who say that causes of the world's climate are so complex that it is a mistake to place all the blame for the current warming on industrial society.

The concentration of greenhouse gases, largely as a result of burning fossil fuels, has swelled by one-third since the dawn of the industrial age, according to scientists at Scripps who contributed this year to an international report on climate change.

In view of the trend, instead of waiting and hoping, government agencies, companies and people should take steps both large and small now to reduce their carbon footprints, panelists said.

"We do not need to be gloomy about this," Stillings said. "There are things we can do that will make a difference."

For starters, there is a potential for clean and renewable solar energy to power much of the region's economy and its homes, Stillings said. And since 2000, many homeowners across the region have installed solar panels on their roofs, she said.

Another promising alternate source of energy is wind, she said.

Stillings said much can be accomplished by simply designing efficient buildings that require significantly less energy than older structures to cool and heat.

Christopher Garrett, an environmental law attorney with a San Diego law firm, noted that the state intends to make efficient buildings a way of life.

The California Public Utilities Commission recently set a goal of delivering, by 2020, only new homes that require no energy from the electric grid because they are well insulated and have their own power sources.

Ultimately, Anders said, the fight against global warming will require state and regional leaders to make hard choices.

For example, California may want to consider lifting its ban on nuclear power plants because they generate virtually no greenhouse gas emissions, he said.

Anders said leaders also will have to figure out how to curb driving, given that the burning of gasoline and diesel fuel in cars and trucks is responsible for about 40 percent of state greenhouse gas emissions. He said officials may need to address the sprawl land-use patterns that produce long drives.

The important thing, said Stillings, is that something be done - and done now.

"Climate change is real. … And I don't think we should leave it for our grandchildren to take care of," she said.

- Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 745-6611, Ext. 2623, or ddowney@nctimes.com.