Earth Equity News

Advocates for Action on Global Warming Chosen as Obama's Top Science Advisers. By Juliet Eilperin and Joel L. Achenbach, WashPost, December 19, 2008. "President-elect Barack Obama has selected two of the nation's most prominent scientific advocates for a vigorous response to climate change to serve in his administration's top ranks, according to sources, sending the strongest signal yet that he will reverse Bush administration policies on energy and global warming. The appointments of Harvard physicist John Holdren as presidential science adviser and Oregon State marine biologist Jane Lubchenco as head of the NOAA, which will be announced tomorrow, dismayed conservatives but heartened environmentalists and researchers. Like Energy Secretary-designate Steven Chu... Holdren and Lubchenco have argued repeatedly for a mandatory limit on greenhouse gas emissions to avert catastrophic climate change... In 2007, as chairman of the board of the AAAS, Holdren oversaw approval of the board's first statement on global warming, which said: 'It is time to muster the political will for concerted action'... While NOAA has traditionally favored commercial fishing interests in policy disputes, Lubchenco has consistently called for conservation measures to safeguard ocean ecosystems in the face of industry opposition... Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists... said, 'You've got people in key places across the administration that get the urgency of the climate issue and get the need for aggressive policy to move climate solutions forward, both in the U.S. and internationally'"