theSun | MONDAY DECEMBER 22 2008
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Obama signals break with
Bush in new science team
WASHINGTON:
President-elect
Barack Obama
(pix) on
Saturday
signalled
climate change
and genetic
research will be
among his top
priorities when
he takes office as
he named White House
science and technology
advisers.
“Today, more than ever
before, science holds the
key to our survival as a
planet and our security
and prosperity as a nation,”
Obama said in a weekly
radio and video address.
“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.”
Obama’s comments
were a clear
reference to
President George
W. Bush’s
administration
which has
been accused
of downplaying
scientific
findings on
climate change
and genetic research.
Signaling a break with
Bush policies on global
warming, Obama named
John Holdren, an award-
winning environmental
policy professor at Harvard
University, to head the
Office of Science and
Technology Policy and
co-chair the president’s
Council of Advisors on
Science and Technology.
Obama called Holdren
“one of the most passionate
and persistent voices of our
time about the growing
threat of climate change.”
Holdren, 64, led the
Pugwash Conferences on
Science and World Affairs,
an international group
of prominent scientists
that won the Nobel Peace
Prize in 1995. He won a
MacArthur Foundation
“genius award” in 1981 for
his arms control work, and
a number of environmental
science awards.
Holdren, a Washington
Beltway insider, served
as former president Bill
Clinton’s science and
technology adviser in the
1990s.
Underscoring the
importance of genetic
research, the president-elect
also named Eric Lander
and Harold Varmus as
co-chairmen of the council
of advisors.
Lander is founding
director of the Broad
Institute, which played a
leading role in the Human
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EARTHREPORT
Week Ending December 19, 2008
Genome Project which in
2003 succeeded in mapping
the location of about 20,500
genes on the 23 pairs of
human chromosomes.
Varmus, a co-recipient
of a 1989 Nobel prize for
studies of the genetic basis
of cancer.
Obama expressed
confidence that together
the two men will “remake”
the group “into a vigorous
external advisory council”
that will shape his thinking
on scientific aspects of his
policies.
The nominees also
include Jane Lubchenco,
a world-renowned
environmental expert
and marine biologist
from Oregon, who will
head up the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, an agency
that monitors global
weather patterns and issues
storm forecasts. – AFP
?30SEN for delivery to your doorstep
A record melt
VAST amounts of land ice in
Greenland, Alaska and Antarc-
tica have melted since 2003 in
an accelerating trend caused by
climate change, US scientists
say. Measurements from Nasa’s
new GRACE satellite show that
those high-latitude areas lost
more than 2 trillion tons of ice,
with most of the decline occur-
ring in Greenland. The runoff
from that melting alone was
enough to raise sea level 0.5
millimetres each of the last five
years.
Desert infestation
A HUGE plague of desert
locusts has begun swarming
over more than 150 square
miles of northern Mauritania,
threatening agriculture. The
UN Food and Agriculture
Organisation said the infesta-
tion emerged as a new breed-
ing season began at the end
of August. A second wave of
reproductions bolstered the
number of insects at the end
of October. “The infestation is
huge,” Abdallahi Ould Babah,
head of the centre for con-
trolling the desert locust in
Mauritania, told AFP. He said
locust fighters have been able
to treat only about 16 square
13
miles with pesticides so far.
Tropical cyclones
DEVELOPING Typhoon Dolphin
brought high surf and brief thun-
derstorms to the US territory of
Guam.
* Weak Cyclone Billy came
ashore along the border of
Western Australia and the
Northern Territory.
* Tropical Storm Cinda formed in
the western Indian Ocean.
Poaching fatalities
AN UPSURGE in poach-
ing at the last stronghold
for the savanna elephants
of Africa’s Sahel region is
probably responsible for the
disappearance of 2,000 of
the animals from the reserve
over the past two years. The
Wildlife Conservation Society
(WCS) says ivory poachers
who use automatic weapons
have decimated the elephant
population in Chad’s Zakouma
National Park, leaving only
about 1,000 of the animals
still living there.
“It’s incredibly heartbreak-
ing to stand before a dead
elephant missing only its
tusks,” said WCS researcher
Mike Fay. – Universal Press
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