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Wind power is one practical alternative to petroleum.The director of a sustainable energy research center at Washington University in St. Louis is challenging President-elect Barack Obama to set goals in energy research and implementation. “I would like to see the next president of the United States set a similar goal to President Kennedy’s from 1961 — to put a man on the moon and to bring him back to Earth by the end of the decade,” says Himadri B. Pakrasi, Ph.D., the George William and Irene Koechig Freiberg Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences, and Professor of Energy in the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

CrissIt’s a 500-pound gorilla that Robert Criss, Ph.D., professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, sees standing on the speaker’s dais at political rallies, debates and campaigns. Its name is population growth. And sometime during President-elect Barack Obama’s first several months in office, he will have to factor it into future environmental policy, says Criss.”Population growth is driving all of our resource problems, including water and energy. The three are intertwined,” Criss says. “The United States has over 305 million people of the 6.7 billion on the planet. We are dividing a finite resource pie among a growing number of people on Earth. We cannot expect to sustain exponential population growth matched by increased per capita use of water and energy. It’s troubling. But politicians and religious leaders totally ignore the topic.”