As fascinating as past Nobel conferences about genetics, globalization and Einstein may have been, here’s a topic to which almost everyone can relate, every time they pump gas.

The energy debate — how to deal with problems caused by our oil dependence and the search for alternatives — will be the conference’s 43rd subject when it begins Oct. 2 at Gustavus Adolphus College.

Global warming and oil depletion are the twin specters of fossil fuels, said Timothy Robinson, psychology professor and conference director.

A longtime voice on global warming, NASA climatologist James Hansen developed the scientific basis for the argument that rising carbon dioxide levels are stimulating the greenhouse effect. He’s one of seven speakers at the conference.

Jeff Jeremiason, assistant chemistry professor and conference chairman, said Hansen will discuss his model, which he described as simple yet elegant.

Basically, greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide trap heat in earth’s atmosphere that would otherwise escape into space.

Hansen predicted a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide from pre-industrial levels would cause a temperature increase of 3 degrees Celsius, or 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

So far, carbon-dioxide levels have risen by 26 percent from the pre-industrial baseline and temperatures have risen by about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit, Jeremiason said.

And he said scientists believe more and more that human activities, not normal cycles, are warming the climate.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is 90 percent sure human activities are to blame, he said, and scientists tend to be conservative.

Oil depletion — more commonly known as peak oil — will be tackled by Kenneth Deffeyes, professor emeritus of geosciences at Princeton University. The hypothesis gets it name from the belief that oil extraction will eventually “peak” at a certain date and decline thereafter.

Deffeyes predicted early in 2006 that oil had “peaked” in December 2005.

Deffeyes is a former colleague of Marion King Hubbert, a Shell Oil geologist and the first to argue that oil supplies would soon peak.

But it doesn’t take a professor to reason that petroleum, for all practical purposes a nonrenewable resource, will eventually run out.

As is typical with the nobel conference, leaders from several fields will offer different perspectives.