The hopes and dreams of pro-environment partisans all over America and the world are much closer to fulfillment, now that president-elect Barack Obama has kept his promises and assembled one hell of a green team to take on long-postponed environment issues such as global warming and alternative energies.

According to the Associated Press, Steven Chu, a 60 year old physicist and winner of the Nobel prize, has been appointed as energy secretary - and he definitely is the right man for the job. Obama referred to him as being on “the cutting edge of our nation's efforts to develop new and cleaner forms of energy”, and it’s well and good that Dr. Chu’s efforts as director of the Energy Department's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California have finally been recognized.

“We must repair the economy and put us on a path forward toward sustainable energy,” Chu said, making it clear that exorcising the demons currently plaguing the American economy is as much a priority as the energy problem.

As a matter of fact, Obama himself talked about how there’s no reason why one of these two issues should outweigh the other. He warned about the dangers of developing an unshakeable dependence on foreign oil, dangers “eclipsed only by the long-term threat of climate change, which, unless we act, will lead to drought and famine abroad, devastating weather patterns and terrible storms on our shores, and disappearance of our coastline at home.“

In fact, working on solving the energy crisis will actually help cure the economy, or, as Obama puts it: “We can spark the dynamism of our economy through a long-term investment in renewable energy that will give life to new businesses and industries with good jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced.”

Chu is not the only pro-green member of the president-elect environment team. Carl Browner will lead a White House council on energy and climate. He is a true veteran of the Environmental Protection Agency, having administered it the longest, during Clinton’s two terms. Lisa Jackson, former head of the environmental department in New Jersey, will be in charge of administering the agency. The White House Council on Environmental Quality will be piloted by Nancy Sutley, a deputy Los Angeles Mayor.

Even if there’s no official announcement yet, it looks like Ken Salazar, Democratic Senator of Colorado, will be the one at the top of the Interior Department. Which means he will oversee oil and gas drilling on public lands and will also keep an eye on national parks and other wildlife refuges. Aged 53, Salazar is well known for having fiercely opposed plans for drilling in the Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as well as other environment-damaging initiatives of the Bush administration. So the winds will surely start changing at the Interior Department.

As expected, environmental groups and congressional Democrats were more than happy with Obama’s choice of people. Positive reactions came even from industry groups. For instance, John Engler, CEO and president of the National Association of Manufacturers, said that he was impressed by Obama’s “continuing determination to bring highly qualified people into his administration.”

Republicans’ view on the matter was also as expected; which is, somewhat skeptical and party-spoiling. Oklahoma Senator James Inholfe, who is also the senior Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, said that Chu has made “troubling comments”, that Browner is a “proud liberal” and expressed his worry about the fact that “Team Obama may be now ready and willing to restrict realistic energy supplies and drive energy prices higher.”