GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS….Today brings yet another parting gift from George Bush: several thousand megawatts of new coal-fired power plants. Breathe deep, America. On the brighter side, Joe Romm is pretty excited over the appointment of John Holdren as the president’s science advisor:
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….Holdren ain’t in the “do something but not enough to avoid catastrophe” crowd.
If Holdren is OK with Joe Romm, he’s OK with me. As I said yesterday, I think there’s only just so much you can conclude based on appointments by themselves, but so far Obama’s picks in the area of science and energy certainly suggest in the strongest possible terms that he plans to take a very serious, very activist approach to global warming.
