Dec. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Harvard University Professor John P. Holdren, President-elect Barack Obama’s pick as his top science adviser, will push for action on climate change and embryonic stem cell research in the White House.

Holdren, 64, a professor of environmental policy, will be named to the post in a radio address by Obama tomorrow, Harvard, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said today in a statement. His appointment to the position of assistant to the president for science and technology depends on confirmation by the U.S. Senate. Obama assumes office Jan. 20.

Holdren, former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, is a specialist in energy and climate change who advised Al Gore on the documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.” His appointment signals a sharp about- face from President George W. Bush’s approach to greenhouse gases and global warming.

“The disruptions and its impacts are growing more rapidly than anyone expected, even just a few short years ago,” Holdren said in an interview last year. “There is already widespread harm.”

Holdren uses a U.S. map in global warming presentations to show areas of Cape Cod and Florida that would vanish if temperatures continue rising. “Global warming” is too mild a term to describe climate changes happening now, he said.

‘Rapid’ Warming

“It implies something gradual, something uniform, something quite possibly benign, and what we are experiencing is none of those,” Holdren said. “It is rapid in relation to the capacity of societies and eco-systems to respond, it is highly non- uniform, and it is certainly not benign.

Calls and e-mails to Holdren’s office today weren’t returned.

Scientists and former colleagues praised Holdren’s experience and familiarity with top scientific issues. Obama’s pick of Holdren and the appointments of Steven Chu as Energy Secretary and Jane Lubchenco as National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief complete a “science dream team for the new administration,” Peter Frumhoff, director of science and policy for the advocacy group Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement.

Holdren is “absolutely the right person at the right time,” said Alan Leshner, chief executive officer of the AAAS, the science advocacy group where Holdren formerly served as president. “He’s an expert not only in energy climate and environment but also in national security, nuclear arms and nuclear energy.”

‘World-Class’

William K. Reilly, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator under President George H. W. Bush and now a San Francisco-based senior advisor to the private equity firm TPG, praised Holdren as a “world-class scientist” who is “extremely knowledgeable about energy research needs and quite critical of the decline in support for energy research since the late- 1970s.”

Reilly and Holdren co-chair the National Commission on Energy Policy, a bipartisan group of energy experts that released energy policy recommendations in 2004.

Holdren is the Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy program in the School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He admonished politicians last year to show stronger leadership on climate change, which the AAAS called a “growing threat to society.”

Great Challenges

“None of the great interlinked challenges of our time -- the economy, energy, environment, health, security, and the particular vulnerabilities of the poor to shortfalls in all of these -- can be solved without insights and advances from the physical sciences, the life sciences, and engineering,” Holdren said in today’s statement.

Holdren’s views on another controversy, embryonic stem cell research, also are likely to run contrary to those of Bush, who has restricted U.S. funding to minimize the number of embryos destroyed to create new colonies of cells.

Holdren has already said he thinks the research should advance without the funding restrictions, said David Baltimore, the 1975 Nobel Prize winner who is now a biology professor at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

“I’m a great fan of John,” Baltimore said yesterday in a telephone interview. “He’s an extraordinary thinker and he also has just the right kind of background to play a role in the energy area that’s so important right now.”

Truth-Tellers

Jonathan Lash, president of the Washington-based environmental advocacy group World Resources Institute, cited the choices of Holdren and Chu as signs the new administration will aggressively act on climate change and other scientific issues.

“They will tell the president and the American people the truth about the scientific findings on our most important challenges,” Lash said. “Each of them has shown a deep understanding of the risks created by human pressure on our environment, and each has experience and skill in helping policy makers understand and base their decisions on science.”

Holden’s appointment also was cheered by George Daley, an embryonic stem cell researcher at the Harvard-affiliated Children’s Hospital in Boston.

“It’s very exciting to have a really formidable scientific intellect in that position,” Daley said in a telephone interview today. “It says the administration clearly wants to hear from the most credible scientists, whether its on energy, climate change or, we hope, on stem cells.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Brian K. Sullivan in Boston at bsullivan10@bloomberg.net; John Lauerman in Boston at jlauerman@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: December 19, 2008 17:17 EST