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Harvard's Holdren to be Obama's science adviser, Globe learns

Email|Link|Comments (7) Posted by Gideon Gil December 18, 2008 06:11 PM

newholdren Harvard physicist John P. Holdren, a leading authority on global warming and a past president of the nation's largest organization of scientists, will be President-elect Barack Obama's science adviser, the Boston Globe has learned.

A representative from one of the institutions with which Holdren is affiliated told the Globe this afternoon that Obama is expected to announce the appointment Saturday during his weekly radio address.

Holdren, who was an adviser to the Obama campaign, is a professor of environmental policy and director of the Program on Science, Technology, and Public Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and also is director of the Woods Hole Research Center in Falmouth, and a past-president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Holdren's work has focused on climate change, energy technology and policy, and nuclear proliferation.

"I think if he is appointed he will send a signal to the scientific community, which has been disenchanted in the current administration, that science is very important and will be listened to," said Sheila Jasanoff, a Kennedy School colleague of Holdren's who has written extensively about the role of scientific advice in a democracy.

"To say John is a workaholic doesn’t capture it," she added. "He’s not happy unless he’s doing the work of three people at once."

Earlier this afternoon, Science magazine had reported on its website that there were strong indications of Holdren's appointment. He was supposed to attend a staff meeting this morning at the Kennedy School but instead flew to a meeting in Chicago with the Obama transition team, Science reported.

In August, Holdren published an opinion piece in the Globe chastising skeptics of global warming. "The extent of unfounded skepticism about the disruption of global climate by human-produced greenhouse gases is not just regrettable, it is dangerous," he wrote. "It has delayed -- and continues to delay -- the development of the political consensus that will be needed if society is to embrace remedies commensurate with the challenge."

That political consensus will be at the heart of the mission of Obama's science advisor. The president-elect has clearly stated his intentions to take the issue head-on, saying he would vigorously move ahead with efforts to promote alternative energy sources such as wind and solar and reduce carbon emissions that cause global warming.

AAAS Chief Executive Officer Alan I. Leshner called the apparent appointment "enlightened" in a statement. "John Holdren's expertise spans so many issues of great concern at this point in history -- climate change, energy and energy technology, nuclear proliferation," he said. "He is widely respected in the United States and around the world as a science leader."

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7 comments so far...

A scientist against alternative positions is troublesome

Posted by cv December 18, 08 06:50 PM

Wow
Many advanced species were wondering if the time to act was too late for humans to save their tiny beautiful planet and themselves. Obama is showing signs of what an advance life form would call 'consciousness' and that is a major transformational shift for the planet. Is there enough time to save humans from themselves ?

Posted by seren December 18, 08 07:03 PM

Advanced species - lol. If all you ignorant fools would stop hyperventilating about global warming (oops, sorry, it's climate change now since warming stopped ten years ago) - co2 levels would probably start decreasing immediately. Anthropogenic Global Warming is the greatest scam in world history. Do some research instead of following the herd of liars and thieves like a bunch of sheep ready to be ruled.

Posted by Leigh December 19, 08 06:21 AM

"If all you ignorant fools would stop hyperventilating about global warming.."

Hmm... I wonder who the real ignorant fool is if you are trying to outright deny global warming.. Maybe you should get off your behind and do some research... It would be nice if actions of human beings, everything from depleting the ozone layer to other environmental pollution, had no effect on this planet Leigh, but unfortunately, it doesn't work that way.. Next time, think before you make a fool of yourself..

Posted by humanbeing December 20, 08 03:10 PM

To "humanbeing":
Global Warming is not about pollution! Its about evil human beings who burn things which results in Carbon Dioxide which must be causing the climate to overheat! What a bunch of self-centered, self-hating idiots!
Obama is going to leave a legacy as the President who wasted our precious resources while trying to fix something that could not be "fixed".

Posted by Sima December 20, 08 07:32 PM

I am not in "climate change denial", I argue that a stable earth climate is the figment of climatologists imaginations...and their models do not make the earth's climate change either.
I agree with Dr. Joanne Simpson past president of the American Meteorological Societywho recently wrote:
Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receive any funding, I can speak quite frankly. [...] The main basis of the claim that man’s release of greenhouse gases is the cause of the warming is based almost entirely upon climate models.

We all know the frailty of models concerning the air-surface system. We only need to watch the weather forecasts. [...] The term “global warming” itself is very vague. Where and what scales of response are measurable? One distinguished scientist has shown that many aspects of climate change are regional, some of the most harmful caused by changes in human land use.

No one seems to have properly factored in population growth and land use, particularly in tropical and coastal areas.

[...] But as a scientist I remain skeptical. I decided to keep quiet in this controversy until I had a positive contribution to make. […] Both sides (of climate debate) are now hurling personal epithets at each other, a very bad development in Earth sciences.

Pat Again:
Global warming will waste the developed world's funding and resources while doing virtually nothing to change it, except delay it by about 5 years...and ruin (further) the economy.
...read the Book "Cool it! "...

If global warming buffs want to solve this problem... Start by:

1. Create laws that no private firm may profit from "Carbon Trading" but the 10% Carbon Trading broker fees will be directly applied to the National Debt.

2. Authorize $1 billion to upgrade and instrument the U. S. with modern instruments in rural areas to compare to adjacent "thermally polluted" airport sites
that form the backbone of the U. S. FAA/DOD/NWS network. This was proposed about years ago under the NOAA-sponsored North American Observing System (NAOS) study. (Hey, otherwise we will throw away $Trillons)

Pat

Posted by Patrick Welsh January 14, 09 03:23 PM

If just one person finds evidence that previous micro-changes in Earth's average temperature caused the massive changes to the biosphere claimed by the 'Global Warming" throng of Pied Piper followers, then, maybe, we would have at least some small reason to think evolution the theory is a plausible alternative to factual elemental existence.

The mass we affectionately term, "Cosmos," has lent a substance we also affectionately call, "Home."

Earth.

If ever we have fallen away from fact-based reasoning, it is in today's religious fervor over one small group of religious activists proposing that "Cosmos" arose from an unknowable element, or from - Nothing?

The last time this type of fervor was seen was when silly-minded "scientists" attempted to alter lead into gold!

As evidenced from such a back-water religious fervor, lead + gold is still lead + gold, and not a lesser form of gold, nor a greater form of lead, in terms of financial valuation. In precisely this light, attempting to change the reality of nominal climate changes due to the tiny imprint of humanity upon Earth's biosphere, compared with the practically immeasurable elemental causation by Earth's natural internal working, amounts to the same levels of insanity practiced in the search for a way to turn lead into gold.

The insipid, blind faith of religious zealots for the theory of evolution, adhering to a planned mantra of deprivation of inclusive thinking, where the Human Mind is open to all arguments, even to making gold from lead, has been a rich incubator for this "global-warming-as-menace" chanting. In fact-based evidence, sunspot volume has exhibited far greater climate change upon Earth's biosphere than even the greatest human efforts to change anything relative to the planet.

In real terms of equation, "Man" has too little of resources to decisively manufacture anything close to the tragedy projected by "global warming" protagonists.

When does "Man" produce the equivalent of a Mt. St. Helens? In just that single, relatively small event in the workings of Earth, without a single point of human intervention, or abetting assistance, Earth managed to release the power equivalent to years of total power production by all Mankind, and to spew far more climate-changing material into the bisphere than Man could in many years, all told.

Al Gore - Pied Piper - go tell it from the mountains "WHY" you are promoting this sick-science to those who were trained by formal education - consider 'brain-conditioning' as a more defining term - as an end-all to the Human Presence upon the crust of Earth. You have so much personal position to gain from this outlandish false science, and so little benefit, if any at all, to offer to those you convince that you speak facts. Could it be that you have an ulterior motive? Perhaps even one where you are in the beginning actions to promote a 'super-race' of the earthly elite, including yourself, of course?

Personally, I find the rat that ate too much of my garden last Summer to be far more intellectually-minded than anyone who has any thoughts of promoting micro-climate change as a major Earth event, and even far more than anyone blathering that the Human Element can cause such! Hope you get my drift, big guy.

To end the biosphere of Earth from micro-climate aberration is the stuff of a first generation of Star Trek. To have anyone with a modicum of intelligent mental power to discern fact from deception believe this religious hocus-pocus is like the Lion Hunter who thinks that his/her thinking is so superior to the Lion target that no safety precaution, such as a suitable escape system and a suitable detainment force, is needed to confront the Lion without personal damage.

Yet, we all know folk with such a feeble mind as to think they need only consider an objective for it to materialize. Normal, mentally active people steer clear of those. Why do only those with little or no education system-mandated thought control see through the sham of proposing that major harm to the biosphere will result from Human uses of Earth's resources?

Maybe it is too painful for those who have joined this pied piper thoughtless mantra, but if any have a mind for "After" the mantra is proven bogus, it is never too late to rejoin the ranks of the reality-based.

Posted by Claude January 19, 09 02:02 PM