Powering the Planet

Saul Griffith is the President and Chief Scientist at Makani Power, a company that is seeking to harness clean energy from high-altitude wind. He is a 2007 MacArthur Award-winning inventor, entrepreneur and writer.

Physicist Shirley Ann Jackson has devoted over a decade to science public policy, serving from 1995 to 1999, at the behest of President Clinton, as Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. She was recently selected to receive the 2007 Vannevar Bush Award from the National Science Board for her lifetime of contributions in science, education and public policy. Jackson is president of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

A leading thinker on geoengineering and a prize-winning physicist, David Keith works at the interface between climate science, energy technology and public policy. He is particularly interested in finding viable ways to capture and store CO₂ including the direct capture of CO₂ from the atmosphere.

Plant physiologist and inventor M. Glen Kertz has been a global leader in the fields of molecular genetics, plant tissue and cell culture for over 35 years. He is president and director of research and development for Valcent Products Inc., a company aiming to bring to market algae-to-biofuel technology.

Chemist Dan Nocera is developing ways to derive clean renewable solar energy by replicating basic chemical reactions similar to those used by plants in the process of photosynthesis. A vocal advocate of solar power, he is the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy and a professor of chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

A prize-winning journalist and author, Andrew Revkin has been a reporter for the New York Times since 1995, mainly covering environmental issues in their social and political context. His blog, Dot Earth, engages the public in a discussion of strategies for balancing human activity with the planet's limited resources. He has written books on the Amazon, Arctic, and global warming.

F. Sherwood Rowland studies the Earth's atmosphere in remote locations from Alaska to New Zealand, in highly polluted cities, and in areas with special conditions such as burning forests. He is best known for the discovery that chlorofluorocarbons contribute to ozone depletion, which earned him the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He is the Bren Research Professor in Chemistry and Earth System Science at the University of California, Irvine.

Betsy Taylor is the president of the board of directors of the non-profit organization 1Sky, founded in 2007 to mobilize a grass-roots campaign demanding federal action to reverse climate change. She has spent more than 20 years leading efforts to organize, fund and advise groups devoted to promoting energy conservation and community building.