Professional Documents
Culture Documents
John P. Holdren, a Fellow of the American Academy Since receiving his B.S. and M.S. in aeronau- and Arms Control of the National Academy
since 1983, is Teresa and John Heinz Professor of En- tics and astronautics at mit and his Ph.D. in of Sciences and was a member of President
vironmental Policy and Director of the Program in aeronautics/astronautics and plasma physics Clintons Committee of Advisors on Science
Science, Technology, and Public Policy at Harvard from Stanford, he has had two extraordinary and Technology (pcast), where he led stud-
Universitys Kennedy School. careers, one as an academic and one as a pub- ies for the White House on protection of nu-
lic gure. After brief stints at the Lockheed clear bomb materials, the U.S. fusion-energy
Carl Kaysen, a Fellow of the American Academy
Corporation, the Lawrence Livermore Lab- r&d program, and energy r&d strategies for
since 1954, is David W. Skinner Professor of Politi-
oratory, and Caltech, he went to uc Berkeley meeting the climate change challenge.
cal Economy Emeritus at mit.
in 1973. There he cofounded and codirected
Ive worked with John on the Academys Com-
a campuswide interdisciplinary program in
mittee on International Security Studies and
Carl Kaysen energy and resources for twenty-three years,
in the Pugwash movement for many years, so
before assuming his position at Harvard in
I can add a few personal observations to his
John Holdren has been a colleague of mine for 1996. His bibliography includes some three
long public record. When Pugwash won the
many years. He is the Teresa and John Heinz hundred articles and reports, and he has edit-
Nobel Peace Prize in 1995, jointly with Joseph
Professor of Environmental Policy and direc- ed, coedited, written, and contributed to four-
Rotblat, John, as chair of the Pugwash Exec-
tor of the Program in Science, Technology, and teen books on energy, environmental prob-
utive Committee, addressed the Norwegian
Public Policy at Harvard Universitys Kennedy lems, nuclear weapons, and arms control.
Nobel Committee in Oslo. His combination of
School, as well as professor of environmental
In 1981, John was one of the earliest recipients great energy, intellectual acuity, focus on the
science and public policy in the department of
of the MacArthur Prize Fellowship. He is chair task at hand, a calm and easy manner, and a
earth and planetary science at Harvard Uni-
of the Committee on International Security smile often hidden in the thickets of his facial
versity.
24 Bulletin Fall 2003
adornments make him an invaluable colleague nologies, the fact is that civilization remains
in any joint enterprise. The speed with which
The problems we know best dependent on nature for most of the cycling of
he can put together a comprehensive and bal-
anced record of long and complicated discus-
and fear most may not be nutrients on which food production depends,
for most of the regulation of crop pests and
sions never ceases to astonish all who work the most dangerous ones. agents and vectors of human disease, for most
with him. of the detoxication and disposal of wastes,
accidents, and mismanagement of nuclear and for the maintenance of climatic condi-
wasteshave historically received most of tions within limits conducive to all these other
John P. Holdren the attention, for reasons of the measurability environmental services and to the human en-
and visibility of harm, and the ready under- terprise more generally.
Environment and Well-Being standability of the mechanism. The indirect
I think it is useful to consider the determinants threatsimpacts of climate change, strato-
spheric ozone depletion, biodiversity loss, and
Environment and Development
of human well-being as falling into three broad
categories: economic conditions and process- alteration of geographic distribution and of Different types of environmental problems are
es (such as markets, productive technologies, population dynamics between benecial and associated with different phases of the socie-
employment, income, wealth, and so on); so- destructive organismsare harder to predict tal trajectory between poverty and wealth. In
ciopolitical conditions and processes (such as and quantify, but they may prove to be more the poorest developing countries, where infra-
self-determination, governance, personal and dangerous and less easily remedied. structure is largely absent and rapidly grow-
national security, justice, education, health An important reason for the persistent under- ing populations using primitive technologies
care, science, culture, and so on); and environ- estimation of threats in this indirect catego- must meet their basic needs with renewable
mental conditions and processes (such as soils, ry is the widespread misimpression about the resources in their immediate surroundings,
the biota, nutrient cycles, mineral resources, extent to which modern technology and medi- the biggest problems are (a) degradation of
climate, and so on). cine have reduced the dependence of human those resources (e.g., deforestation, deserti-
well-being on environmental conditions and cation, erosion); (b) bacterial contamination
A key understanding in relation to these three of waste-saturated water supplies; and (c)
categories is that major failures in any one may processesabove all on climate, which affects
all the others. Notwithstanding the remark- acute indoor air pollution from inefciently
undermine the human enterprise. The condi- burning biomass fuels in badly ventilated
tions and processes in each of the three cate- able accomplishments of biomedical, agricul-
tural, and environmental engineering tech- dwellings.
gories are indispensable to human well-being.
While some trade-offs around the edges are In the high-growth phase of economic devel-
inevitable, it is a mistake to imagine that one Table 1. opmentwith medium rates of population
or the other of the categories is primary and Classication of Environmental Threats growth and rapid growth of gross domestic
the others secondary. Human activities need product (gdp) per capita, fed by a rapidly
Environmental threats from human activities
to be managed in a way that preserves and en- rising use of energy and materials in manufac-
Direct loss of life, health, property, or in-
hances the ingredients of well-being under all turing, transport, and construction of build-
come from routine, accidental, or malicious
three headings. A second important point is emissions: ings and infrastructure, with a low priority
that the threats to human well-being arising given to efciency and the environmentthe
toxic
from the environmental category remain less carcinogenic characteristic environmental problems include
well understood (by publics, policymakers, mutagenic (a) massive urban and regional air pollution;
and professors alike) and therefore less com- teratogenic (b) acid precipitation; (c) industrial pollution
prehensively addressed in politics and policy corrosive of surface and ground water with hydrocar-
than are the threats in the other two categories. Loss of life, health, property, income, pleas- bons and metals; and (d) lling and pollution
ure, or security as a result of a disruption of of estuaries by ports, freight terminals, and oil
What are the threats in the environmental biological or geophysical resources or pro- reneries.
category? As shown in Table 1, they can be cesses, including those of:
divided into two groups: those arising from soils The richest countrieswhere population
human activities and those generated by natu- vegetation growth rates are low, per capita economic
ral processes. Of course, there is an interaction nutrient cycles growth is moderate, and substantial invest-
hydrology ments in pollution control have begun to curb
between natural hazards and human activi-
climate
ties: human indirection and inattention often the stratospheric ozone shield emissions to air, water, and soil of some of the
lead to the magnication of natural hazards population dynamics of valued or more easily captured pollutantsare respon-
and to the general lack of priority we give to destructive organisms sible for (a) continuing high emissions to the
protecting ourselves and our property from Natural hazards atmosphere of pollutants resistant to control
these natural hazards. Weather/climate: storms, floods, droughts, (notably greenhouse gases, nitrogen oxides,
avalanches, ice ages very ne particles, and some toxic metals)
The problems we know best and fear most resulting from high levels of material con-
Geology: earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis,
may not be the most dangerous ones. Direct sumption and personal mobility; (b) clean-
volcanoes
health impacts from pollutiondirty air, toxic up challenges of daunting magnitude from
Biology: die-offs, outbreaks of valued
contamination of ground and surface water, the accumulated burden of past pollution of
or destructive organisms
carcinogens in food, radioactivity from nuclear ground water, soil, and riverine and estuarine
Gas
300 light of all of this, it has become increasingly
Oil
clear that energy is the core of the environ-
250 Coal ment problem; environment is the core of the
200 energy problem; and the energy-environment
Nuclear
intersection is the core of the sustainable de-
150 Hydro + velopment problem.
100 Biomass Let me try to clarify the energy situation in
50 quantitative terms. Figure 1 shows world pri-
mary energy supply for the period 18502000,
0 distributed according to fuel source. Note that
1850 1875 1900 1925 1950 1975 2000
150 years ago, in 1850, about 88 percent of the
Year worlds energy was coming from the biomass
sourcesmostly fuelwood and charcoal, aug-
sediments; (c) luxury levels of consumption Energy and the Environment mented by crop waste and dung. The remain-
of meat, sh and shellsh, and tropical fruits ing 12 percent came from coal. In the ensuing
and hardwoods, leading to deforestation by Many of the most difcult and dangerous en- century, from 1850 to 1950, world use of pri-
lumbering, grazing, and plantation operations; vironmental problems at each of these levels mary energy grew by a factor of 4.3, and this
to overharvesting of estuarine, open-ocean, of economic developmentfrom the damage growth was supported mostly by a tremen-
and coral reef environments; and to conver- that the very poor do to the immediate envi- dous expansion in the use of coal. The growth
sion of mangrove swamps into aquaculture ronment, and thus to themselves, to the dam- of oil and natural gas became important only
ponds (mostly beyond the borders of the con- age that the very rich do to the global environ- in the latter part of this period; by 1950, oil was
suming countries). ment, and thus to everybodyarise from the supplying just over half as much energy as coal,
harvesting, transport, processing, and conver- and natural gas was supplying only a sixth as
Finally, the kinds of environmental problems sion of energy. Energy supply is the source of much as coal.
that persist and grow at the highest levels of most indoor and outdoor air pollution, most
economic developmentwhere population radioactive waste, and much of the hydro- In the most recent half century, from 1950 to
growth rates are low, per capita economic carbon and trace metal pollution of soil and 2000, world energy use grew at a little more
growth is moderate, and substantial invest- groundwater. And energy-related operations than twice the rate that had characterized its
ments in pollution control have begun to curb account for essentially all of the oil that hu- growth during the previous one hundred years.
emissions to air, water, and soil of some of the mans have put into the oceans as well as for The increase in the last half of the twentieth
more easily captured pollutantstend to be most of the human-produced gases that are century was 4.7-fold, making the increase over
those that (a) arise from renewable resource altering the global climate. the one hundred fty years from 1850 to 2000
demands driven beyond thresholds of sus- a factor of 4.3 x 4.7, or 20-fold. As is clear from
tainability by the growth of prosperity itself But, of course, energy is also an indispensable Figure 1, the great bulk of the growth of world
(e.g., decimation of ocean sheries and over- ingredient of material well-being and of eco- energy in the last half century came from the
harvesting of tropical hardwoods for high-
Table 2. World, U.S., and Chinese Energy Supply in 2000
income diets, homes, and furniture); or (b)
are legacies of past carelessness in forms that World United States China
are very costly to ameliorate after the fact and Primary energy (exajoules) 450 105 146
for which the polluter pays principle fails of which ... oil 35% 38% 22%
because the polluters have disappeared (e.g., natural gas 21% 25% 2%
toxic contamination of groundwater); or (c) coal 23% 25% 49%
arise from widely used, hard-to-replace pro- nuclear energy 6% 8% 0.4%
ductive technologies in ways that are resistant biomass 13% 4% 25%
to inexpensive technological xes (e.g., co2 hydropower and other 2% 1% 2%
emissions from fossil-fuel combustion); or Electricity (billion kilowatt-hours, net) 14,700 3,800 1,300
(d) tend to export their environmental costs derived from ... fossil fuels 64% 71% 82%
and risks in space and time to an extent that nuclear energy 17% 20% 1.2%
makes difcult their assessment and inter- hydropower 18% 7% 17%
nalization through price or policy (e.g., co2 , wind, geothermal, solar, and biomass 1.6% 2.2% 0.1%
biodiversity loss, nuclear proliferation and Note: 1 exajoule = 1018 joules = 1 billion gigajoules; hydropower is counted as energy content, not as fossil fuel equiva-
nuclear terrorism risks from nuclear energy). lent; net electricity excludes the part of generated electricity that is used within the power plant.
1.
John P. Holdren (Kennedy School of
Government, Harvard University)
2.
John P. Holdren, President Patricia
Meyer Spacks (University of Virginia),
Vice President Louis W. Cabot (Cabot-
Wellington, LLC), and Calestous Juma
(Kennedy School of Government,
Harvard University)
3.
Martin B. Malin (American Academy),
John P. Holdren , and Carl Kaysen
(MIT)
1 3