Zombie has a report on the book Ecoscience, co-authored by Barack Obama’s “science czar” John Holdren (with Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich) in 1977, and its radical advocacy of mass sterilization and forced abortion to solve a looming overpopulation crisis — that never actually materialized: John Holdren, Obama’s Science Czar, says: Forced abortions and mass sterilization needed to save the planet.

We should note that the book was written 32 years ago, Holdren was not the only author (and the other authors are known for radical opinions on these issues), and the context — as far as I can tell from reading Zombie’s excerpts — is that these extreme measures would be taken in response to a massive crisis situation.

Still, these are pretty outrageous opinions by most people’s standards, and Holdren should be given a chance to explain or renounce them.

What I find most disturbing is Holdren’s apparent readiness to buy into apocalyptic scenarios, and to jump directly from that into recommending totalitarian measures — and 32 years later, he and his co-authors were very clearly wrong in their alarmism.

It raises the question of whether John Holdren is the best person to be advising the president on issues like climate change.

UPDATE at 7/10/09 6:40:11 pm:

LGF reader “freetoken” points out this video at a Senate Commerce Committee website, of the nomination hearing for John Holdren, in which he addresses his associations with Paul Ehrlich; the segment in question begins at about 116:10. (The first 30 minutes of this video are an unchanging title screen for some unknown governmental reason, so skip ahead by clicking the playback progress bar.)

FLV Movie