John Holdren has been appointed by Barack Obama as as Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
From his bio on Wikipedia
Holdren earned a bachelor’s degree from MIT in 1965 and a PhD in plasma physics[3] from Stanford University in 1970. He taught at the University of California, Berkeley for more than two decades. His work has focused on global environmental change, energy technologies and policies, nuclear proliferation, and science and technology policy[4]. Dr. Holdren served as chairman of the board of directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Science from February 2007 until February 2008[5](AAAS) and is director of the Woods Hole Research Center.
Dr. Holdren is the author of some 300 articles and papers[citation needed], and he has co-authored and co-edited some 20 books and book-length reports, such as Energy (1971), Human Ecology (1973), Ecoscience (1977), Energy in Transition (1980), Earth and the Human Future (1986), Strategic Defences and the Future of the Arms Race (1987), Building Global Security Through Cooperation (1990), Conversion of Military R&D (1998), and Ending the Energy Stalemate (2004).
Last year he gave this talk about climate change (or Global Climatic Disruption as he prefers to call it) at the American Response to Climate Change Conference at The Wild Center in Tupper Lake New York – June 25 & 26, 2008.
That such a highly qualified and passionate climate aware scientist has been chosen to be the president’s science advisor gives me great hope for the presidency of Barack Obama.
I contacted The Wild Center after seeing the video to ask if they had any problem with my reproducing the talk on this site fully accredited and very graciously, they said they’d be delighted!
The copyright of the video obviously remains with The Wild Center – please do not reproduce this video without explicit permission of The Wild Center.
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Problems lie with ridiculously biased/controlled media coverage–there are zilch news articles in the mass media on the scientist and scientific data supporting that it is a natural phenomenon, and the control source of other planets–weather on mars. The other problem is the government source of money and power derived from this.
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/newsroom/20050920a.html
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech-mainmenu-30/environment/607
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2007/121207_scientists_shunned.htm
http://www.prisonplanet.com/over-650-scientists-challenge-global-warming-consensus.html
http://www.jonesreport.com/article/01_09/09energy_czar.html
The results: the mass media manipulating the public to electing a president who may not even be a u.s. citizen who fought tooth and nail to keep sealed his original birth certificate….apparently the last place to look for reliable news is any major news source.
This comment was originally posted on http://radar.oreilly.com/)“>O’Reilly Radar Insight, analysis, and research about emergin…
anonymous,
I think your assertion of the widely debunked urban legend about Obama’s birth certificate says it all: political affiliation as a proxy for position on global warming.
Data about weather on mars is interesting, and if more evidence turns up, I’m sure it will in fact get a hearing in the scientific community. There’s lots of good evidence that over time, the scientific community changes its opinion in response to new data. (Consider the case of asteroid impacts and mass extinction, or, for that matter, the many years of accumulating data that led to the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change.)
If new data comes in, it will eventually be factored in. But you, and all the other people who want to argue whether or not climate change is human caused, miss the point of this post: the investments we’d make in order to deal with climate change are good investments. The investments we make by pretending it isn’t an issue are bad investments EVEN IF CLIMATE CHANGE IS NOT HUMAN-CAUSED.
I’d love opponents to explain on the negative economic consequences (if any) of:
* raising the price of gasoline via taxes to reflect its real cost to society (e.g. the cost of overseas wars to protect our access to this diminishing resource) while using the proceeds to fund investment in new energy technologies that use renewable resources
* making oil companies pay substantial royalties for resources they extract, rather than letting them pretend those resources are free, creating enormous profits for a few while short-changing the people who actually own those resources (the public)
* making coal plants accountable for the cost of environmental cleanup.
* investing in public transportation
* reducing waste in packaging
etc. etc.
Most of the arguments advanced seem to fall into the following camps:
1. Anything the government does to distort the market is bad (ignoring the fact that much of our carbon economy’s apparent economic advantages are actually the result of government distortions such as tax advantages, ignoring full costs etc.)
2. We’ll be at a competitive disadvantage vis a vis other countries. Again, dubious, given that other countries are ahead of us in recognizing both the dangers of the current course and the advantages of investing in the future.
Meanwhile, the real point of Pascal’s Wager is that the consequences of climate change are really bad. We’re playing with a loaded gun. Given loaded gun on one hand, vs. even equivocal economic tradeoffs on the other, choice seems pretty obvious to me.
This comment was originally posted on http://radar.oreilly.com/)“>O’Reilly Radar Insight, analysis, and research about emergin…
OK, I’ll take on your challenge, Tim:
* raise the price of gasoline via taxes to reflect its real cost to society … while using the proceeds to fund investment in new energy technologies that use renewable resources
I agree with the first half, but not with the second. If there is a good rationale for government to investment in new energy technologies (I would say "support R&D in low-carbon technologies", rather than renewable, as "renewable" can also mean food crops), then the government should do it (subject to whatever budget constraint it faces). But it would be only pure coincidence that the optimal level of investment in new energy technologies in any given year will be exactly equal to the revenues from the gasoline tax. And don’t forget, part of the current tax is already hypothecated to the Highway Trust Fund.
* making oil companies pay substantial royalties for resources they extract, rather than letting them pretend those resources are free, creating enormous profits for a few while short-changing the people who actually own those resources (the public)
They already pay substantial royalties in many cases, and in very few cases get access to oil for free. (Actually, I cannot think of any cases.) If you are arguing, instead, that the public needs to make sure it gets a good deal in the future when it auctions leases, fine.
* making coal plants accountable for the cost of environmental cleanup.
Do you mean coal mines or coal-fired power plants? Coal mines in the west, at least, have to post bonds sufficient to restore lands disturbed by surface mining. If you mean coal-fired power plants, I’d phrase it as charging them for the marginal social damage (soot, acid rain, CO2 emissions).
This comment was originally posted on http://radar.oreilly.com/)“>O’Reilly Radar Insight, analysis, and research about emergin…
Hi Tim,
Have been reading youre blog for sometime but never make a comment.Where I live there are signs that climate change is upon us. However,I feel us humans are speeding up the process but is it going to happen no matter what we do. I saw on youtube a song and video slide show called "where we going to go" it really drives home the climate change story. Not a bad song.Guitar and voice only.Its good we have debates but sometime the arguments come from the emotions not reality.I live in the mountains and it is definitely getting warmer . The sun in summer seems to burn the skin in a shorter time than 50 years ago. Maybe my skin is thinner and burns easier.
This comment was originally posted on http://radar.oreilly.com/)“>O’Reilly Radar Insight, analysis, and research about emergin…
Ngamoko – don’t get too carried away. We’re only talking about a temperature increase of 0.7 degC over the past 160 years. If there was any significant shift in the intensity of the sun, you wouldn’t be noticing it.
The whole theory of anthropogenic warming is not that there’s more energy from the sun, but less transmitted back into space.
Even if the small amount of heating is due to changes in the intensity of the sun (which is very possible) it’s not so big that you will notice it directly.
This comment was originally posted on http://radar.oreilly.com/)“>O’Reilly Radar Insight, analysis, and research about emergin…
Before you get all hyped up about alternate energy, read this:
http://chizumatic.mee.nu/ghosts_of_my_past
He states the criteria that alternate energy has to meet in order to succeed:
1. It has to be huge (in terms of both energy and power)
2. It has to be reliable (not intermittent or unschedulable)
3. It has to be concentrated (not diffuse)
4. It has to be possible to utilize it efficiently
5. The capital investment and operating cost to utilize it has to be comparable to existing energy sources (per gigawatt, and per terajoule).
For further research, check his USS Clueless archives. No, he’s not going to answer further questions, because, see his archives.
It’s all very well to get excited about alternate energy, but it has to match and surpass our level of energy usage for a successful switchover.
This comment was originally posted on http://radar.oreilly.com/)“>O’Reilly Radar Insight, analysis, and research about emergin…
Tim!
Thanks for this article! I cited this article in a facebook note yesterday(I hope that’s alright!), and have received 30+ comments on it already. You’re right when you say that this issue really brings out the animosity. I mean read some of these opinions that got thrown my way.
’sorry, just don’t buy it.’
‘I don’t mind helping the envirnment but a global crisis can’t be solved my one counrty,everyone has to be involved. places like China are not going to cap their industries; that would take a global law-you don’t want that or do you?’
‘I am an American and I very proud of that fact. Let’s be innovative and not shove things down people’s throats. Let’s be reasonable with our solutions and not having the gov tell me how much i can drive.’
‘don’t think there is a legitimate way to tell if it is a warming cycle or actual planet warming, because of our lack of weather records in years past’
Please keep up the good work, it was a great read!
This comment was originally posted on http://radar.oreilly.com/)“>O’Reilly Radar Insight, analysis, and research about emergin…
Hi R James,
Sorry R but if you live in the mountains of New Zealand like I do the sun is more "burny" than yesteryear.We are told by those who know that the "hole" above us (next stop the South Pole) is getting larger. Mate,I am a retired engineer and like all engineers we know everything.What we don’t know can be written on the back of a postage stamp.
ngamoko
PS If you don’t believe me come on down and see for yourself.To give you an idea how hot it get these days. When you hook a trout it comes out of the water fully cooked.If that is not an indication of climate change tell me what is.
This comment was originally posted on http://radar.oreilly.com/)“>O’Reilly Radar Insight, analysis, and research about emergin…
Tim:
Went to Saul’s talk @ Long Now; it was inspiring and gave me some engineering ideas. But it gave me no political ideas and we’re facing a real political crisis:
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2009/1/21/212058/100
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/obamas-urgency-on-warming-meets-cool-public/?hp
change-congress.org is one geeky political initiative; we need more. Ideas? Pointers?
This comment was originally posted on http://radar.oreilly.com/)“>O’Reilly Radar Insight, analysis, and research about emergin…
Obama’s National Science Advisor John Holdren on Global Climate Disruption http://is.gd/m9p8
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
The recent unprecedented tropical storm flooding in the Philippines adds support to the points John makes. This summer’s (2009) artic sea ice survey by NASA shows that, although the melting is not as bad as the record low of 2007, the ice area was still well below the average for the past 30 years.
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