Obama's Strongest Message on Climate Yet

Science magazine is reported Thursday that "Strong indications are that President-elect Barack Obama has picked physicist John Holdren to be the president's science adviser."

I have known Holdren for over a decade and have discussed energy/climate issues with him many times. He probably has more combined expertise on both climate science and clean energy technology than any other person who could plausibly have been named science adviser. You can see a video of an excellent talk he gave here (along with talks by Chu and me). For a more recent BBC interview, see "The Climate Quote of the Week".

I would say that if Holdren is named (on Saturday), it is an even stronger signal than the terrific choice of Steven Chu for Energy Secretary that Obama is dead serious about the strongest possible action on global warming. After all, the science adviser works out of the White House and oversees science and technology funding, analysis, and messaging for all federal agencies.

Holdren ain't in the "do something but not enough to avoid catastrophe" crowd that the NYT's Andy Revkin keeps on touting (see here and here). In fact, Revkin quoted him last year as an anti-moderate:

Some experts, though, argue that moderation in a message is likely to be misread as satisfaction with the pace of change.

John P. Holdren, an energy and environment expert at Harvard and president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, defended the more strident calls for limits on carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases. "I am one of those who believes that any reasonably comprehensive and up-to-date look at the evidence makes clear that civilization has already generated dangerous anthropogenic interference in the climate system," Dr. Holdren said. "What keeps me going is my belief that there is still a chance of avoiding catastrophe."

As I've said many times, the more you know about both climate and energy, the less moderate you are. Economists, who know little about either, can be found in Revkin's murky middle, but not serious climate scientists, and especially not ones who understand as much about energy as Holdren. Holdren has said many times that we must choose between serious mitigation or serious misery -- geo-engineering isn't the answer:

"The 'geo-engineering' approaches considered so far appear to be afflicted with some combination of high costs, low leverage, and a high likelihood of serious side effects."

It is true that the science adviser has not been a particularly powerful player in recent Administrations, but Obama has already articulated his desire to elevate the importance of science and technology in his administration. As PEBO said of his choice of Chu, "His appointment should send a signal to all that my administration will value science." Another crucial role for the science adviser is to help educate the public on climate science and solutions. As Holdren says, it is too late to prevent dangerous human-caused warming. But after eight years Bush spreading disinformation and muzzling scientists, putting Holdren in charge of the "bully pulpit of science" is just what the nation and the planet need if we are to have any chance of avoiding catastrophic warming. Kudos to Barack Obama for another terrific choice. Here is the rest of today's Science piece:

A top adviser to the Obama campaign and international expert on energy and climate, Holdren would bolster Obama's team in those areas. Both are crowded portfolios. Obama has already created a new position to coordinate energy issues in the White House staffed by well-connected Carole Browner, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, and nominated a Nobel-prize winning physicist, Steve Chu, to head the Department of Energy. That could complicate how the Office of Science and Technology Policy, which Holdren will run, will manage energy and environmental policy. "OSTP will have to be redefined in relation to these other centers of formulating policy," says current White House science adviser Jack Marburger.

Holdren had been planning to attend a staff meeting this morning with colleagues at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, where he heads the technology and science program. But instead, he flew today to Chicago to meet with the transition team and prepare for the announcement; initial plans are to release the official news of the appointment on a weekly radio program that Obama records and will be broadcast on Saturday. The transition office declined to comment.

Holdren is well known for his work on energy, climate change, and nuclear proliferation. Trained in fluid dynamics and plasma physics, Holdren branched out into policy early in his career. He has led the Woods Hole Research Center for the past 3 years and served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (which publishes Science) in 2006.

Comments

[independant4barry]

Wait...I thought Sarah Palin "probably knows more about energy than anyone". I think Barrack is making a huge mistake!

[judycross]

Watch out. Taxation based on a phoney premise stings more than the usual kind.
I like the way John Coleman put it.:
"Historically we can clearly see that hydrocarbon use does not correlate with temperature changes. Temperature rose for a century before significant hydrocarbon use. Temperature rose between 1910 and 1940, while hydrocarbon use was almost unchanged. Temperature then fell between 1940 and 1972, while hydrocarbon use rose by 330%."(see graph at site)

http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/11338421.html

[Warthog]

We have had enough Bush and big business propaganda. Have some cold hard facts. http://climate.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm

[Marlyn]

"Pumping sulphur particles into the atmosphere to mimic the cooling effects of a large volcanic eruption." ???

That is NOT a sustainable solution!

[hortonhearsawho2]

Sasha turn out the light.....just kidding, but , every bit counts.

[jayhawk67]

One problem that has exacerbated global warming the past thirty years is the lack of academic pursuit of degrees in science and engineering, coupled with an increasing pursuit of an MBA.
Consider the advances by Japanese and Korean automobile companies: While Detroit's Big Three are just now getting serious about fuel efficiency and emissions, those countries have focused their resources on improving products rather than just market share. Consequently, they are much better positioned to take advantage of the now widely, if not universally, acknowledged need for vehicles propelled by sustainable energy.
There is certainly nothing wrong with an MBA. However too many young people who have the requisite academic skills to do bachelor's degree work in science or engineering take an easier route as undergrads and then acquire an MBA to make a lot of money. Too often, it seems, their post-MBA values take them down a errant path where the pursuit of a Wall Street bonus shreds much of any honesty--intellectual or otherwise-- they have ever had.
A consequence is that there actually is acceptance in some quarters of political leaders like George Bush who not only have a sub-par intellectual capacity but whose presence seems to make it okay to let greed run its course and along the way push their various spokesmen to dumb down their public statements about areas as vital as science..
No wonder the world is heralding the advent of an Obama administration.

[Leftsailor]

harriscrl3 Backtrack...try FISA. That aside, GREAT choice. Go Green!

[harriscrl3]

OH give me a break Fisa was before he was elected and can be argued it help him and he DID NOT backtrack. Some of you need to pay attention to the words and remember that Obama is an Lawyer. He did Not backtrack. The bill had in what he was looking for. Whether you agree with him or not is moot its a new bill. Just like he did not backtrack on campaign financing its in the words. You need to pay attention to Obama's words that why he choses them carefully. Just like he never said that his people had no contact with Blago just like they werent involved in any dealings. He just said He did not have any type of contact with Blago.

Carol

[thecanadian]

Great article Joseph! Ignore the ignorant posting here. Note that low IQ's posting here are not relevant because they don't understand the significance of threat! . Hope Canadas' Harper/Bushie reads this! Canada was amongst the lowest of the G8 performers or non-performers. Shame!

[Benevolus]

I won't take Obama seriously on the environment until he gets some stones and raises the gas tax.

[vjoseph]

Newsflash: oil prices are 36.95$ a gallon. No profit there buddy

[thecanadian]

Another newsflash - Obama is still PE - not President yet but look what he has already achieved! Confidence & hope

[mesmerised]

Over 600 scientists protested the latest world gathering of AGW propagandists. Current weather trends show we've been in a cooling cycle the past several years, and the beginning of winter in 2008 is proving that to be true.

The AGW people are extreme leftists who are using their claims to install a new way of living for the people, a way that suits the AGWers political ideology. The truth is crushing down upon them, with their constant revisions of their "absolute science" claims about global warming; their failed predictions about the weather, and their outright, provable lies.

The more the issue is made public, the faster the AGWers will lose. That's why they need to say the debate is over and why they need to shut up their opposition. Reinstalling The Fairness Doctrine would assist them quite nicely.

[BrettnCalgary]

This particular talking point is easy to refute:

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/11/11/23656/027

[Bladernr1001]

Listing supporters of global warming is a not a convincing argument. Our miniscule contribution to CO2 buildup cannot explain the overall level of CO2 increase. Our world has been warming a cooling for millions of years. Why this is all of a sudden a big issue is very curious and I for one am very skeptical.

Also, next time you provide links can you supply one that is not the site for some left wing wako enviro group?

[mouselion]

We are in an extreme warming trend caused by human carbon emissions, which will precipitate a premature coming of the next ice age. Huge geographical areas are experiencing thick fogs for long periods of time that do, indeed, cause cooling patterns. Mostly, they go unnoticed.

Watch for larger and larger fogs happening as time continues. This is the beginning of the next ice age, prematurely precipitated by human-induced global warming.

[MaxMBJ]

Of all the idiocies believed by the left, global warming has got to rank highest on the chart. Led by a failed, overweight, meglomaniacal politician and believed in by bleating sheep who don't even realize that 100 years ago nobody was taking the earth's temperature in over half of it, this pseudo-science comes in with the preposterous claim that science is in consensus on the issue.

Consensus? Every week a new climatologist voice come out from under the PC radar and debunks global warming.

And every week a new ridiculous claim comes in from the Kool-Aid, er, make that "Warm-Aid" crowd trying to explain an earth that just won't participate. Like the latest: the present cooling is further proof of the earth's warming.

Obama doesn't really believe this B.S. No intelligent person could. But, as it was in the days of McCarthy, even good people must play along. The day is coming, and soon, when the McCarthite cover will be blown and all you global warming freaks will be left to search for a new faux scare to show how superior you are to the Wal-Mart crowd.

[vjoseph]

Oh the deniers are out today!

[WaitingforJanuary]

Ice core samples have shown an overall change in temperature coinciding with the industrial revolution. I have no time to fully explain how climate change works, but do you have a list of climatologists rejecting it?

[TheWanderer]

So that means in the last six weeks six climatologists have "debunked" global warming. Names, please.

[Unitynow8]

forget global warning

just think about the fact that due to industrialisms and it's side effects people are getting poisoned starting in the womb. Money and greed at the cost of the health of people, animals and nature in general is just plain short sided and stupid.

anything to get us away from living on chemistry is a good thing.

[jake106]

Bingo! Instead of arguing back and forth about Global Warming, we should be doing something about the absolutely undeniable effects of pollution. Everywhere you look there is evidence of the problems we are creating, from high mercury counts in fish, to toxins leaching from our landfills, to the poisons spewed into the air by powerplants. Sometimes I wonder if the global warming theory is actually a plant, set up by people who don't want us to fix things. By throwing such a controversial problem out there, they have diverted attention away from things that CAN be fixed.

[Givethemhellharry]

There is a simple solution to generating electricity without causing any additional pollution and there are 1 billion generators available today to do it. If only someone in power would listen........ www.aaes-ltd.com.

It really does work.

[WmC]

"It" may indeed work, harry, but the link does not.

[nedpotter]

As we begin another very cold, very snowy winter, when will the global warming alarmists finally give it up? I think my favorite Orwellian argument for man-made global warming hysteria is the occasional story describing how the cold weather is proof of why global warming is getting worse(?!?!). Please, just find something else to obsess about. We're still waiting on the bird flu pandemic, still waiting for Y2K to tumble the jetliners from the sky, still waiting on the population explosion, still waiting on africanized killer bee swarms, and so forth. I just wish people could put their White Liberal Guilt Syndrome to some practical use("I must continually be responsible for something dire!"), other than just the sheer entertainment of watching it unfold.

[TheWanderer]

1) The world population has doubled in the last 40 years. Increasing exponentially. There's your population explosion. expected to increase by 50% in the next few years. 2) Global warming does not simply mean it's getting hotter everywhere, although right-wing trolls belabor this disengenuous falsity endlessly. That's why consensus now calls it Climate Change - because trolls and right-wingers are too ignorant to understand that black/white good/bad literalness does not apply to science. Global warming is responsible for worse winters, hotter summers, freak weather (like snow in Las Vegas) and more and increasingly terrible hurricanes and monsoon seasons. Of course, you'd rather obsess over accusations of Obama making terrorist fist bumps and not being american-born and being a secret muslim and all the other crap your chosen media fills you up with to distract you from the bankruptcy of the right in terms of ideas, ideology and viable solutions to any of these issues.

[KQuarksSuperKollider]

As a scientists I am ecstatic at Obama's obvious move to use scientific results to form good policy rather than form bad policy and then try to create science to prove it or to ignore science altogether like we have seen for the last 8 years.

Selecting John Holdren for this role would be another giant step in that direction.

[PerryWhite]

When we realize that we are moving into a period of global cooling, should we set up government programs to increase CO2 levels in the atmosphere?

[HeevenSteven]

Old trolls never die; they just become more and more irrelevant.

[Overd0g]

Excellent. Now we can become even more bankrupt tilting at windmills.

[HeevenSteven]

No, that's wealthier, BUILDING windmills.