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Environmental activists and scientists teamed up at the University of Arizona Thursday for a "teach-in" on global climate change and conservation.

The hope was to encourage college students to start acting on solutions for the planet's future.

"We believe global warming will be the defining issue of our generation," said UA student body President Tommy Bruce. "With awareness comes a new lens through which we look at life."

The presentations were part of a nationwide "teach-in" day, sponsored by "Focus the Nation: Global-Warming Solutions for America," a national group that coordinated with more than 1,600 colleges across the country for the event.

"Sustainability is the next great democratic movement," said M. Scott Johnson, a senior organizer with Defenders of Wildlife. "And we already know what to do."

The steps of the current generation of college students can make the vision of a sustainable future a reality, Johnson said.

He urged students to become personally and politically engaged now and work toward sustainability by starting in their own homes and then moving outward, to the community and to the nation.

"What if we can direct the amazing technology and amazing ingenuity toward a vision of peace and prosperity and abundance?" Johnson said. "The crisis that is global warming is a wake-up call our culture has needed for a long time to turn toward sustainability."

The perception that the Earth is so big it will absorb whatever humans put into it is demonstrably false, Johnson said. Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from human pollution are clearly driving global warming, he said. The first changes are already evident in bodies of water and glaciers and the rise in dramatic weather events like drought, flooding, hurricanes and tornados.

"We are a force of nature, moving forward blindly and debilitating our home," he said. "We need to be moving with our best foot forward with ways to bring that carbon down."

Other presentations dealt with energy conservation, water harvesting and changes that can begin on campus.

"Sustainability is now a necessity," said UA architecture professor Nader Chalfoun. "It is the only affordable way."

Energy consumption in the United States costs $450 billion a year. Arizona spends $6 billion and Tucson spends $1 billion on energy annually.

Buildings are the single biggest contributor to global warming and the greatest consumer of energy, accounting for half of all energy consumed in the world. Heating and cooling account for two-thirds of the energy use in buildings. Energy-efficient architecture and construction, tailored to specific conditions, could save half the energy use in the United States, Chalfoun said.

In Arizona, buildings must be designed with the knowledge that there is a scarcity of water and an abundance of sunlight, Chalfoun said. Energy savings can be maximized by designing buildings with consideration given to several factors: shape, orientation, insulation, shading, window design and placement, reflectivity, ventilation, materials and mechanical systems.

"We need to have an architecture that's a reflection of who we are," he said.

Brad Lancaster, a permaculture expert and author of "Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond," said that Tucson is a "hydrophobic society."

Almost 4 billion gallons of water falls on Tucson during a storm that delivers 1 inch of rain and the vast majority of that water drains away, rather than being captured as the valuable resource it is.

"We are literally dehydrating Tucson through the way we build Tucson," he said. "We can instead take the path of abundance by keeping the resources on site."