I should think that you too would be concerned that the group is so low on scientific background. There are more than enough technical problems – like your recent analysis of the misleading discussions of the last 8-year global SURFACE tenperature flat; the phony case for corn-ethanol, etc. – that Obama may need some help with. It’s hard to believe that all these lawyers will be able to make the technical cases convincingly.

How about sending some of the SOB’s to jail for screwing the planet (ie, the rest of us who admire the benefits of clean air, water, and food supplies) for the last eight years? God knows the current administration had no problem making life hell for anyone protesting in the streets.

Let’s DO something.

The reason they are all lawyers is that almost no special interest group gives more money to Democrats than lawyers.

In contrast, Dan Kammen is well respected and as check of literature, or more easily, Youtube lectures wll show. Or his Congressional testimony.
http://rael.berkeley.edu/ files/ 2007/ Kammen_House-GovReform-11-8-07.pdf

The Enviro Law and Policy Center in Chicago is well known. Learner is director.
http://www.elpc.org/ energy/ globalwarming/ index.php

Union of Concerned Scientists liaison Julie Anderson
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/

Yale School of Environment and Forestry is very famous.
His colleague james speth is a lawyer and top-notch
http://www.thebridgeattheedgeoftheworld.com/a-conversation/

These people have forgotten more about climate than the McCain team could
learn in 4 years.

Energy production choices need to be based on more than policy, there need to be people with the ability to realistically evaluate the potential for success or failure of those policies.

One more comment - if you depend on A-listers - meaning people who have been influencing policy for many years, you cannot be surprised if what you get is more of the same. As challenging as the past years have been, were the years before that really better from an energy perspective?

Can anyone remember SynFuels? Who was at the helm as US utilities dashed for gas and ended up driving up the price to levels that pushed many other gas users out of the market? Many of those former gas users in chemicals, plastics, and other process heat uses were staffed with solid union employees.

American scientists now talk to an attentive Congress. They reach out to the public. A faculty friend of mine has written or edited parts of each of the four IPCC reports since 1992. He talks to colleagues and to community groups. I’ve seen talks by other scientists. The recommendations are essentially the same - flatten the rise in emissions by 2020 and cut them 80% by 2050. A price on carbon is essential, cap and trade should be implemented and clean technologies deployed asap.

The British opposition has a shadow cabinet of experts awaiting their turn in power. Jason Grumet runs teleconferences involving 100 experts for Obama. What do you imagine they talk about? The broad policy plans are laid out or under urgent discussion. Bill Becker has listed many recommendations. Conferences occur around the world and even in Washington. Here are slides from a June meeting:

http://www.rff.org/ Events/ Pages/ Federal-Policy-to-Reduce-US-Greenhouse-Gas-Emissions.aspx

We must move from science toward new economic policies and clean technology. Science points the way, but others are ready to do the deployment. Just as R&D won’t move from the lab into the energy market without a push, we now need technologists, marketers and yes, lots of environmental lawyers. Setting up a proper legal framework will ensure that Americans are all pulling togethert.

It’s okay to have lawyers in Government, they just have to be watched very carefully. At least these people come from Environmental Law and not fossil fuel companies. Obama is after all a lawyer and some of these people he knows personally, from places he’s been as a lawyer and to study law. The trick and goal is to do the right thing.

They don’t need to be scientists, I’m sure they can read Executive Summaries of reports as well and better than most people, they will get the idea of what the scientists are trying to say. It’s their motivation that needs to be in the right place, that sometimes short term goals like money today is not always the best thing if it means destruction in future years. That’s a hard idea and plan to get into most people.

I can agree with that small part, but questioning people’s motives based on their degree is lame.

Here are projects of Howard Learner’s ELPC group.
http://www.globalwarmingsolutions.org/

The organization’s value was pointed out on this blog:
http://climateprogress.org/ 2007/ 10/ 10/ environmental-law-policy-center-global-warming-website/

Legal scholar Daniel Esty helped plan this recent project, featuring Schwarzenegger and IPCC headman Pachauri :
http://www.triplepundit.com/ pages/ states-commit-to-combating-cli-003085.php

Esty has been involved for years. Example- a 2005 Climate Conference with 39 recommendations which reads like a blueprint for actions seen today -
http://environment.yale.edu/ climate/ americans_and_climate_change.pdf

His views are public knowledge:
http://globalwarming.house.gov/ tools/ 2q08materials/ files/ 0120.pdf

Much of my work focuses on the business-environment interface. I have studied both how policy structures create (or fail to create) incentives to engage the private sector in addressing environmental harms and why environmental protection and related energy issues have become core elements of business strategy. My recent book, Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage, shows why corporate leaders have come to recognize that environmental thinking in general and a focus on climate change in particular can be sources of competitive advantage in the marketplace. The research for this volume involved interviews with hundreds of corporate executives and dozens of companies across the United States and around the world – and provides the underpinning for my testimony today.

Scientists won’t or can’t write things like this, which are also badly needed -
http://www.eco-advantage.com/book.php

Scientists are involved at informing these policy makers. Those who say otherwise are not well informed of what’s been going on. We need policy makers who can fast-track deployment, not the one year wait McCain promises to study government savings.