John Holdren to be Obama’s Science Advisor

Eli Kintisch is reporting at the ScienceInsider blog that John Holdren, who is a Professor of Environmental Policy and Director of Program in Science, Technology, and Public Policy at Havard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government will be tapped as science advisor by President-elect Barack Obama.

In his salad days, Holdren was a paid-up member of The Limits to Growth club. For example, in his 1971 Sierra Club book, Energy: A Crisis in Power, Holdren declared that “it is fair to conclude that under almost any assumptions, the supplies of crude petroleum and natural gas are severely limited. The bulk of energy likely to flow from these sources may have been tapped within the lifetime of many of the present population.” More recently, Holdren has declared that the world is not running out energy and that even “peak oil” is debatable.


…While Holdren makes rhetorical gestures toward the private sector, he still seems to think that new technologies arise full-blown from government agencies and university laboratories.

In any case, Obama is clearly signaling with the appointment of a Green Team, including Holdren as science advisor, Carol Browner as “energy/climate czar,” Steven Chu as Secretary of Energy, and Lisa Jackson as EPA administrator, that he means to make a big federal push on alternative fuels and carbon rationing.

Reason