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[bobf <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>]

Gerald, this is in today's WSJ.  By the way, Bev said you are "jerry".  
'sorry, I didn't know................

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Sunday, December 21, 2008 As of 6:51 AM EST 



 
DECEMBER 21, 2008, 6:51 A.M. ET Obama Fills Science Posts With Climate Change 
Experts Article


WASHINGTON -- President-elect Barack Obama on Saturday named Harvard 
physicist John Holdren and marine biologist Jane Lubchenco to top science 
posts, signaling a change from Bush administration policies on global warming 
that were criticized for putting politics over science.

Both Mr. Holdren and Ms. Lubchenco are leading experts on climate change who 
have advocated forceful government response. Mr. Holdren will become Mr. 
Obama's science adviser as director of the White House Office of Science and 
Technology Policy; Ms. Lubchenco will lead the National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration, which oversees ocean and atmospheric studies and 
does much of the government's research on global warming.

Mr. Holdren also will direct the president's Council of Advisers on Science 
and Technology. Joining him as co-chairs will be Nobel Prize-winning 
scientist Harold Varmus, a former director of the National Institutes of 
Health, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Eric Lander, a 
specialist in human genome research.

"From landing on the moon, to sequencing the human genome, to inventing the 
Internet, America has been the first to cross that new frontier because we 
had leaders who paved the way," Mr. Obama said in announcing his selections 
in his weekly radio address. "Leaders who not only invested in our 
scientists, but who respected the integrity of the scientific process."

"Because the truth is that promoting science isn't just about providing 
resources -- it's about protecting free and open inquiry. It's about ensuring 
that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or 
ideology," he said. "I could not have a better team to guide me in this work."

In their posts, the four scientists will confront challenges in global 
warming after years of inaction by the Bush administration, which opposed 
mandatory cuts of greenhouse gas pollution. Last year, former Surgeon General 
Richard Carmona testified to Congress that top Bush administration officials 
often dismissed global warming as a "liberal cause" and sought to play down 
public health reports out of political considerations.

Since 1993, summer Arctic sea ice has lost the equivalent of Alaska, 
California and Texas, and global warming is accelerating. The amount of 
carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere has already pushed past the level some 
scientists say is safe.

Mr. Holdren, 64, is a former president of the American Association for the 
Advancement of Science in Washington who has pushed for more urgent action on 
global warming. As Mr. Obama's top science adviser, he would manage about 40 
Ph.D-level experts who help shape and communicate science and technology 
policy.

Colleagues say the post is well-suited for Mr. Holdren, who at Harvard went 
from battling the spread of nuclear weapons to tackling the threat of global 
warming. He's an award-laden scientist comfortable in many different fields.

"Global warming is a misnomer. It implies something gradual, something 
uniform, something quite possibly benign, and what we're experiencing is none 
of those," Mr. Holdren said a year ago in a speech at Harvard. "There is 
already widespread harm .. occurring from climate change. This is not just a 
problem for our children and our grandchildren."

Ms. Lubchenco, an Oregon State University professor specializing in 
overfishing and climate change, will be the first woman to head NOAA. A 
member of the Pew Oceans Commission, Ms. Lubchenco has recommended steps to 
overcome crippling damage to the world's oceans from overfishing and 
pollution and has expressed optimism for change once President George W. Bush 
leaves office.

"The Bush administration has not been respectful of the science," she said 
earlier this year. "But I think that's not true of Republicans in general. I 
know it's not. I am very much looking forward to a new administration that 
does respect scientific information and that considers it very seriously in 
making environmental policies."

Mr. Varmus, who was a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize for his research on the 
causes of cancer, served as National Institutes of Health director during the 
Clinton administration. A former medical professor at the University of 
California, San Francisco, he helped found the Ralph Lauren Center for Cancer 
Care and Prevention and chairs a scientific board at the Bill and Melinda 
Gates Foundation.

Mr. Lander, who teaches at both MIT and Harvard, founded the Whitehead 
Institute-MIT Center for Genome Research in 1990, which became part of the 
Broad Institute in 2003. A leading researcher in the Human Genome Project, he 
and his colleagues are using the findings to explore the molecular mechanisms 
behind human disease.

In his radio address, Mr. Obama said he planned early next year to more 
closely address the issue of engaging the nation's technology community to 
"harness technology and innovation to create jobs, enhance America's 
competitiveness and advance our national priorities."

"It's time we once again put science at the top of our agenda and worked to 
restore America's place as the world leader in science and technology," he 
said.

Copyright © 2008 Associated Press

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122977903455824101.html

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--- On Sat, 12/20/08, Gerald Brittell <gabrittell AT gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Gerald Brittell <gabrittell AT gmail.com>
> Subject: [Homestead] Holdren on climate change
> To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Date: Saturday, December 20, 2008, 11:25 AM
> Here is a very informative speech given recently by John P.
> Holdren,
> Obamas's pick for top Science Adviser.  This is a
> remarkable choice given
> the past eight years. The speech, with charts,  is a great
> summary of
> present scientific thought on climate change.
> 
> http://www.ncseonline.org/Conference/Chafee08final.pdf
> 
> jerry b
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