Obama's Energy pick bodes well for action on deepening climate crisis

steven_chu.jpgPresident-elect Barack Obama did not name Jim Rogers as his Energy Secretary, as some environmentalists feared might happen after news reports put the Duke Energy CEO on the short list of nominees. Instead, Obama has reportedly chosen Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and alternative-energy expert.

Currently the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the University of California, Chu was an early proponent of finding scientific solutions for climate change. Under his guidance, the lab has become a world leader in renewable energy research -- particularly in the development of carbon-neutral sources of energy including biofuels and solar power.

"Chu clearly gets the climate crisis, and he is a major proponent of renewables and efficiency," says Michael Mariotte of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, which has offices in Maryland and North Carolina. "He seems to believe in the concept of peak oil and the need to get off fossil fuels."

While environmental advocates have raised concerns about Chu's pro-nuclear statements (he has said nuclear power "has to be a necessary part of the portfolio"), Mariotte says Chu does not appear to be pro-nuclear in the "ideological way the utility guys are."

The appointment of an elite scientist with a track record of addressing the climate crisis comes at a critical moment, as global warming pollution appears to be worsening at an unanticipated rate. At a high-level academic conference on climate held at the U.K.' s Exeter University this summer, for example, scientists heard a report that that carbon emissions were increasing faster than even the worst-case scenarios considered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, driven largely by increased coal burning in the developing world.

This week, world environmental officials are gathered in the Polish city of Poznan for talks on a new climate treaty. United Nations Secretary Ban Ki-moon called on them not to allow the economic crisis to overshadow the urgency of the climate problem:
"Yes, the economic crisis is serious," he said. "Yet when it comes to climate change, the stakes are far higher. The climate crisis affects our potential prosperity and peoples' lives, both now and far into the future."

"There can be no backsliding on our commitments," he said of efforts to shift from fossil fuels toward renewable energies.
Ban urged a global environmental equivalent of the New Deal -- what he called a "Green New Deal."

Back home in the States, though, Chu faces a political battle with the forces that continue to deny the reality of the climate crisis. Just this week, the minority members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee led by outspoken climate-change skeptic Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) released a report challenging man-made global warming claims.

The fresh denials come despite more bad news on climate, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announcing this week that climate change is becoming an increasing threat to the world's coral reefs. Scientists warn that if current trends continue, stands of ancient elkhorn coral off the coast of South Florida could disappear altogether in the next 40 years. That would be a loss not only for the environment but also for the economy, which stands to lose 70,000 jobs and $5.5 billion in annual sales in five Florida counties that depend on the reefs to attract tourists.