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Dec 18, 2008 06:15 PM | 12
President-elect Barack Obama is poised to name John Holdren, a well-respected Harvard physicist and outspoken critic of the Bush administration's science policy, as his pick for White House science advisor, according to online reports.
The anticipated appointment was first reported today by Science Insider, a news blog published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). According to the blog, Obama will name Holdren, who served as AAAS president in 2006, on Saturday.
Holdren advised Obama during the presidential campaign and is director of the program on science, technology, and public policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
In a piece for the October issue of Scientific American, Holdren wrote that "the ongoing disruption of the earth’s climate by man-made greenhouse gases is already well beyond dangerous and is careening toward completely unmanageable."
"The Bush administration has wasted the last eight years," he wrote then. "It should have been taking decisive action but engaged instead in systematic understatement of the danger."
But he added that with a new president taking office, there was "reason to hope."
In a 2003 review for Scientific American of the book Power to the People: How the Coming Energy Revolution Will Transform an Industry, Change Our Lives, and Maybe Even Save the Planet, Holdren wrote that "current methods of mobilizing civilization’s energy are more disruptive of local, regional and global environmental conditions and processes than anything else that humans do." Holdren also criticized sci-fi author Michael Crichton for dismissing the import of global warming.
The president's science advisor is often a physicist, but usually comes out of federal labs. Bush appointee John Marburger, who directed Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York in the late 1990s, has served in the post since 2001. John Gibbons, a former physicist at Oak Ridge National Lab, was former President Clinton's science advisor from 1993 to 1998, a role that Neal Lane, formerly director of the National Science Foundation, held from 1998 until 2001.
Obama's transition-team press office did not return a call or email seeking comment. Holdren also did not return calls and an email.
Image of John Holdren/Tom Fitzsimmons
Tags:
climate change,
energy policy,
global warming,
John Holdren,
Barack Obama
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12 Comments
Add CommentExcellent
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisgod help us, environmental extremist at the top,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGreat now we'll have Physicist who thinks he understands Global warming, Any decent Scientist/Engineer would take the word of actual Geologist and Climatoligists who have studied "Global Warming," Oh and what's this? 650 of them are now saying it's not Man Made? Just once I'd like the President to choose a nice Well Rounded and objective Mechanical Engineer instead of these Political Physicists
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf course he is going to choose a global warming fundamentalist. What better way to install a carbon tax? Guess they missed the fact that we’ve recently had the most glacier growth in 250 years which coincided exactly with the lack of sunspot activity. “Gee, what a novel idea! You mean, if the sun gets hotter the Earth gets hotter? Naw, It has to be people causing it… If it was anything else we wouldn’t be able to take their money right now.”
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, CO2 levels have definitely gone up and that attributes something to it as well. But don’t think for a minute that we don’t already know how to make this world a better place - our governments will never have it though. There’s not enough money in it for their corporate owners.
I remember John Holdren from high school. He was the smartest and most politically savvy kid in our graduating class. Whatever he is asked to do for the president-elect, I am sure he will be able to do it, and do it well. I applaud Obama for choosing such a brilliant guy, especially because he is an environmentalist. We cannot save our country if we do not save our planet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am glad that John has been given an important portfolio to which he deserves.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFasahat Mohiuddin Mohi
Houston Tx
e mail fasahat999@hotmail.com
congratulations to John
This is a good look at John Holdren if you want to see his overview on climate.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://usclimateaction.org/userfiles/flash/Holdren.html
It's from the American Response to Climate Change Conference held at The Wild Center in the Adirondacks this June.
"Geoengineering" were you cool the plant by reflecting the suns heat with particles in the upper atmosphere. I say why not first try to mitigate the CO2 by adding a bio-reactor to all the smoke stack industries. The byproducts of this system will produce a domestic supply of clean burning fuels. Then we demand our government produce cars that give us 200 miles to a gallon of gas which will also cut emissions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe could cut our green house gasses by more than 75% in six years, have a car we can financially live with, and a domestic supply of fuel which will pay for the reactors installation or we can just ask Scotty to beam us up.
Scientific American, shill for the Left.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAbout the views John Holdren:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSingle mothers should have their babies taken away by the government; or they could be forced to have abortions
Mass sterilization of humans though drugs in the water supply is OK as long as it doesn't harm livestock
The government could control women's reproduction by either sterilizing them or implanting mandatory long-term birth control
Nothing is wrong or illegal about the government dictating family size
A "Planetary Regime" should control the global economy and dictate by force the number of children allowed to be born
We will need to surrender national sovereignty to an armed international police force
You don't believe me? He actually wrote all this stuff in his book "Ecoscience".
Source: http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/
And ofcourse he is a global warming believer, it's a way to accomplish his goals: hoaxscare all the people to death to get a supranational organisation.
About the views of John Holdren:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSingle mothers should have their babies taken away by the government; or they could be forced to have abortions
Mass sterilization of humans though drugs in the water supply is OK as long as it doesn't harm livestock
The government could control women's reproduction by either sterilizing them or implanting mandatory long-term birth control
Nothing is wrong or illegal about the government dictating family size
A "Planetary Regime" should control the global economy and dictate by force the number of children allowed to be born
We will need to surrender national sovereignty to an armed international police force
You don't believe me? He actually wrote all this stuff in his book "Ecoscience".
Source: http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/
And ofcourse he is a global warming believer, it's a way to accomplish his goals: hoaxscare all the people to death to get a supranational organisation.
You forgot to mention what kinda guy this man is:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHe's an eugenic, he dreams of massive population reduction and population control.
In the 70th he publically demanded massed forced infertilization and forced abortions and an worldwide regime for population control.
Unnecessary to add that this would be a heavy crime against humanity, in the scale of Nazi regime.
Now being part of the Obama/Brzeszinki regime, he has the power to commit his longly planned crime against humanity.