John P. Holdren: "Meeting the Intertwined Challenges of Energy and Environment"

In a sobering assessment of the world's energy future, AAAS Chairman John P. Holdren told a packed auditorium at AAAS that there are no technological silver bullets to solve the persistent conflict between rising global demand for cheap energy and the environmental harm that results.

In the ninth annual AAAS Robert C. Barnard Environmental Lecture, Holdren offered a wide-ranging review of the growth in energy use over time, dispelled some myths about whether the world is running out of energy, and discussed the environmental challenges—particularly climate change—that lie at the heart of the world's energy predicament.

Holdren, the Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy at Harvard University and director of the Woods Hole Research Center, noted that if the world continues on a "business as usual" path, energy demand will increase 50% between 2005 and 2030, with nearly a doubling in the amount of coal-fired electrical power.

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29 October 2007