Les Jones

Obama’s science advisor was loser of a famous bet

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008 | Environment, Science |

John Tierney - Flawed Science Advice for Obama?:

Dr. Holdren, now a physicist at Harvard, was one of the experts in natural resources whom Paul Ehrlich enlisted in his famous bet against the economist Julian Simon during the “energy crisis” of the 1980s. Dr. Simon, who disagreed with environmentalists’ predictions of a new “age of scarcity” of natural resources, offered to bet that any natural resource would be cheaper at any date in the future. Dr. Ehrlich accepted the challenge and asked Dr. Holdren, then the co-director of the graduate program in energy and resources at the University of California, Berkeley, and another Berkeley professor, John Harte, for help in choosing which resources would become scarce.

In 1980 Dr. Holdren helped select five metals — chrome, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten — and joined Dr. Ehrlich and Dr. Harte in betting $1,000 that those metals would be more expensive ten years later. They turned out to be wrong on all five metals, and had to pay up when the bet came due in 1990.

And Holdren is a global warming true believer, natch.

Tags: democrats aren't the party of science either, john holdren

2 Comments to Obama’s science advisor was loser of a famous bet

Lisa
December 25, 2008

Why don’t people believe in global warming when there are satellite pics to prove the ice caps are melting at an alarming rate? It’s like most people think if it’s snowing in their back yard then global warming is a fabrication dreamed up by the Dems. Bleh. I hate politics. Anyway, Merry Christmas to you and your family! I bet the girls have a blast this year.

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