Students participated in a heated debate Thursday morning at the UC on whether fossil fuels should be banned in the U.S.

The debate featured student's from associate professor Stan Bowie's social welfare policies and issues class. Bowie has been organizing the debates, many of which are on controversial topics, for seven years.

"I try to teach my students how to win these arguments, present issues, evidence and how to be convincing in their presentations," he said.

Ban fossil fuels

"There's little doubt in anyone's mind that America is in trouble," Anne Marie Sherman said. "We are in the midst of two wars and the worst economic times Americans have seen since the Great Depression. Scientific experts assert that we have less than 10 years to drastically change our bad environmental habits."

The affirmative said that ending America's use of fossil fuels will stop not only the environmental crisis, but the national economic and security crises as well.

The team said they would support the use of biofuels and battery electric vehicles as a step away from gasoline.

The team said they fully understand how costs of changes they propose are, but they understand better the cost of doing nothing.

"We cannot afford one more war for resources, we cannot afford one more season of unprecedented climate change, we cannot afford to harm our planet so severely that our consumption of energy has harmed our planet to the point where our grandchildren will live in a world unrecognizable," Sherman said.

America has been a leader in the past of many new frontiers; unfortunately, America is not leading the world when it comes to ending global climate change, she said.

Don't ban fossil fuels

Katelyn Robinson of the opposing party opened by saying that during the 1970s scientists thought there was going to be a new Ice Age upon us.

"This is not global warming, it's global climate change and it's been happening for billions of years," she said.

Fossil fuels cannot be replaced by alternative energy sources, Robinson said.

"Anyone with general scientific knowledge would know and would also be aware of the minuscule effect of human activity on climate change," she said.

The opposition team questioned the budget required to fund Al Gore's ten year plan,

Michelle Sonner from the opposition team asked what the estimated budget was to fund Al Gore's 10-year plan. John Bailey from the affirmative team said that by shedding the country's dependency on oil, we could save up to $1.7 billion in four years.

At the affirmative closing statement, Bailey said the world must change the way that we think, create and use energy or we'll soon run out of energy sources and regress into the dark age.

Ferguson closed the opposing argument by saying she refuses to agree with the unrealistic notion that these alternatives are currently capable compensating for the loss of fossil fuels.