Holdren may push for the U.S. to be part of a carbon- curbing treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, said Epstein, associate director of the Harvard Medical School’s Center for Health and the Global Environment, who has consulted Holdren on research.

Holdren will counsel Obama on how to cut carbon dioxide emissions. The gas has risen to a concentration of about 385 parts per million in the atmosphere, from about 275 parts per million in the early 1700s, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

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John Holdren’s predictions about global warming, illustrated in riveting charts and graphs, helped ex-Vice President Gore win an Oscar for his 2006 documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth”.” Holdren also helped persuade Ford Motor Co. and ConocoPhillips Co. executives to accept that climate change caused by gas emissions threatened to raise sea levels and harm crops. His slides pop up frequently in other people’s speeches.At age 64, Holdren now is taking on his toughest assignment: getting the American public and Congress to curb fossil fuel use. Barack Obama has named Holdren as assistant to the president for science and technology as well as director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, a post for which he will face a Senate confirmation hearing on Feb 12.

The White House “is the place where he ought to be right now, trying to save the world,” said Paul Ehrlich, author of “The Population Bomb” (Ballantine, 1968), a manifesto that predicted disaster from depletion of the Earth’s resources. Holdren is “absolutely brilliant,” Ehrlich said.

Holdren may push for the U.S. to be part of a carbon- curbing treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, said Epstein, associate director of the Harvard Medical School’s Center for Health and the Global Environment, who has consulted Holdren on research.

Holdren will counsel Obama on how to cut carbon dioxide emissions. The gas has risen to a concentration of about 385 parts per million in the atmosphere, from about 275 parts per million in the early 1700s, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

 

Studies have suggested that halting levels at 550 particles per million by the year 2050 would avoid the worst effects of global warming and help avoid flooding and major crop losses. Holdren may aim for even bigger reductions, said Graham Allison, director of Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

‘Genius Grant’

“He believes at this stage that the world’s got to get down to no more than 550 parts per million and may have to get lower than 450 parts per million,” Allison said.

Holdren first gained public attention in December 1981, at age 37, when he won a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, or “genius” grant, for analyses of energy and arms control. He joined the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, an organization focused on limiting nuclear weapons, and gave an acceptance speech in Oslo in December 1995 after Pugwash shared the Nobel Peace Prize. He later served for 14 years on the MacArthur board.