John Holdren is science's new champion

[LongTomH]

Source: The Guardian UK

The decision by Barack Obama to appoint John Holdren as his chief scientific adviser deserves widespread welcome. The Harvard academic and former energy expert at the University of California, Berkeley, commands international respect among physicists, climate experts and other researchers. He is an able scientist and is also a vociferous critic of those who still deny our planet is overheating because of humanity's industrial activities.

Sceptics such as academic Bjørn Lomborg have already been singled out by Holdren for some uncompromising criticism. He accused the late author Michael Crichton of "colossal ignorance and arrogance".

Thus Obama, who takes up office on 20 January, has made it clear through Holdren's appointment that global warming is going to be dealt with robustly by his administration. There is no longer room for doubt. Our planet faces a climate catastrophe of our making. Accepting this point is heartening news for the US - and for the rest of the world which, until now, has looked in vain for strong leadership from America in combating global warming. It was in part the hope of a change in US climate policy that helped give last November's presidential elections such keen global interest.

However, there is more to the elevation of Holdren, a former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, than the boosting of US climate action. In selecting a scientist of his stature, Obama is signalling clearly that he will be ending policies, introduced by George W Bush, that saw science sidelined and the advice of its practitioners ignored and sometimes distorted by the White House.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/21/obama-john-holdren

[Liberal Veteran]

1. Science FTW!

It'll be so nice to have a president that doesn't look out the window of the plane to see if they are going to fall off the edge of the flat earth.

[FrenchieCat]

2. I am excited as to what will be coming out of the New White House.....

The brain trust that Obama has assembled will make his vision happen. 21st Century, here we come....a little late, but here we come nevertheless. :bounce:

[opihimoimoi]

3. KnR The window is almost closed...althrough our power has been greatly diminished by W's wasteful

years, both monetarily and in blood.

[Posteritatis]

4. I move that "Champion of Science" be an official title somewhere, dammit. (nt)

[eppur_se_muova]

7. Title? Hell, give him a superpower ring !

He's gonna need it to muck out the Bushian stables.

[varun]

5. Welcome change

from Dubya's worldview of magic and superstition...

[groundloop]

6. YESSSS !!!!!!

Little by little the US is regaining some semblance of respect from the rest of the world.