Advising on climate change
When Daniel Schrag arrived at Harvard as a 30-year-old geologist interested in paleoclimate, the study of climate changes through history, he didn’t realize his career was about to gain another dimension. “My first day at Harvard, in August 1997, [Professor] John Holdren … walked down the hall and said, ‘Dan, President Clinton … has just asked me to brief each cabinet member individually before the cabinetwide discussion of what we should do about Kyoto [where an international agreement was reached to reduce greenhouse gases]. … What is new about climate science that you can tell me, that I could use to help educate the cabinet?” said Schrag, who now is the Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology and director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment. “For me, that was ‘Welcome to Harvard.’ ” When it comes to the closely linked issues surrounding climate change, energy, and the environment, Harvard faculty research...