A blogger once said that only the ideologically-driven anti-science disinformers never admit to error, since their job is to make errors on purpose. Okay, that was me, but still.

In truth, most people rarely if ever admit to major errors. So it seemed to me that Leap Day would be a good day to run through my biggest mistakes.

I’m not going focus on the many, many small mistakes that are inevitable for anyone who blogs daily and has written literally millions of words on this subject. I work to admit and correct those mistakes as quickly as possible – see my post about whether you should cancel your subscription to the New York Times.

I do think Climate Progress presents the science more accurately and with fewer errors than the vast majority of the MSM — especially since errors include quoting people whose job it is to make errors on purpose.

I’ll end with my biggest blogging mistake, but let me start again with my biggest climate science mistake.

I have consistently underestimated the timing and speed of climate impacts and the level of greenhouse gas emissions that would likely cause catastrophic warming. In the 1990s, I was mostly a 3°C or 550 ppm guy.  In fact, looking at my 2004 book, The Hype About Hydrogen, I now see that it actually floated a scenario in which “in 2037, the the National Academy of Sciences’ Panel on Abrupt Climate Change, noting that the 3 previous years were a full 1°F warmer than the past decade, urges CO2 stabilization at 650 ppmv within 50 years.”  Ouch.

Here’s how I corrected that mistake: After my brother lost his home in Hurricane Katrina, I spent a lot of time attending seminars by the top climate scientists, talking to as many as possible, and reviewing as much of the scientific literature as I could. That’s when I realized the situation was considerably more dire than I or 99% of the public and opinion-makers realized — and that climate scientists were doing a lousy job of communicating that fact. Six years later, the situation is still considerably more dire than, oh, at least 95% of the public and opinion-makers realize, but at least my understanding of climate is more grounded in the latest science (see “An Illustrated Guide to the Science of Global Warming Impacts: How We Know Inaction Is the Gravest Threat Humanity Faces“).

Of course, now I’m a 450 ppm guy and I still may be too high! It’s also worth noting that because of our better understanding of carbon cycle feedbacks, the cumulative CO2 that humans can afford to emit to stabilize at any temperature level is considerably lower than we thought just 5 years ago (see “Hidden Bombshell in the IPCC Fourth Assessment“). So we need to act ASAP.

In that regard, my biggest political error in judgment was to believe President Obama (and his uniquely knowledgeable climate team) would be willing and able to actually pass a serious climate bill. All I can say in my defense is I wasn’t alone. Obama’s lameness on this issue is not the primary reason we didn’t get climate action — the disinformers and their political allies as well as the media deserve 90% of the blame, as I’ve said many times. Could Obama have succeeded if he had really tried?  I do believe there was a meaningful bill that could have passed had Obama made it a priority, but we will obviously never know the answer.

I shouldn’t leave out my biggest mistake at the Department of Energy — my strong support for the hydrogen and transportation fuel cell program.

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Our guest blogger is Tina Ramos, an Energy Research Associate at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Today, FEMA Administrator and former Director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management Craig Fugate reminded us that climate change and its effects are actually something that we must consider and plan for now, because the threats are not going away no matter how hard the GOP tries to convince us that they aren’t real.

“We don’t do a good job of communicating what we know [about how climate change will affect our communities],” said Administrator Fugate during the National Leadership Speaker Series on Resilience and Security in the 21st Century hosted by the U.S. Green Building Council and Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI) at the National Press Club this afternoon.

When I talk about climate resilience, I’m talking about how we need to forcefully communicate the risk we face in not building resilience to climate change at the local level, which might not have been in anyone’s experience previously.

The administrator stressed the importance of recognizing “total cost of ownership” in decision making that affects our nation’s and our communities’ futures. “People are starting to get a better sense of what total cost of ownership is. When you buy a car now, you don’t just ask how much it costs. You ask how many miles to the gallon the car gets.” You look at how present decisions have future consequences on your pocketbook and well-being.

The Administrator went on to explain that ignoring the current and future effects of climate change means not incorporating the true total cost in our decisions. “I owe you $18 billion,” he said. “The National Flood Insurance Program is underwritten by the taxpayers – did you know that? $18 billion was the money spent [on emergency services] during the hurricane season in 2005 alone,” when he was Director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management.

“We cannot afford to continue to respond to disasters and deal with the consequences under the current model,” he warned. “Risk that is not mitigated, that is not considered in return on investment calculations, oftentime steps up false economies. We will reach a point where we can no longer subsidize this.”

Tea Party conspiracy theorists have decided that ICLEI’s support for climate resilience is part of an eco-Marxist United Nations plot to build a one-world government.

Ignoring the effects of climate change — until disaster has already happened and we are forced to clean up the mess on an emergency footing — is not a sustainable strategy. If lawmakers in Washington actually intend to make the fiscally responsible decisions they preach about, then they will follow the administrator’s warning and immediately develop a national strategy that at once mitigates the negative effects of climate change and begins to build resilience on the local level. Investing in climate resilience means reducing pollution and preparing for its unavoidable effects. Failure to act now will be paid for in ever-increasing amounts of America’s blood and treasure.

Download the Green Building & Climate Resilience report by the US Green Building Council and ICLEI.

Today was a big milestone for people who care about public health and a livable climate. Two utilities announced the planned closure of nine coal plants in Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, bringing total retirements (executed and planned) since January 2010 past the 100 mark to 106.

Two plants in Chicago owned by Midwest Generation, the Fisk Plant and the Crawford Plant, had been a key target for local activist groups. These two plants have been in operation since the early 1900′s and were last updated in the late 50′s and 60′s. Along with violating “grandfathered” (i.e. lax) air quality standards and causing hundreds of emergency room visits each year, the two plants represented the largest source of local greenhouse gas emissions in 2010.

Local and national activists groups, along with the Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, put intense pressure on Midwest Generation to shut the plants down.

The second set of plant closures come from the wholesale power provider GenOn Energy, which said it will close 3,140 MW of aging plants in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. All of the plants are coal, except for one that is oil-fired. GenOn said new air quality regulations would make it difficult for the company to keep the plants operating.

A confluence of factors is making it very difficult for owners of coal plants — particularly old coal plants — to compete. A combination of high domestic coal prices, low natural gas prices, new air quality regulations, coordinated activist pressure, and cost-competitive renewables are making coal an increasingly bad choice for many power plant operators. Along with the 106 announced closures, 166 new plants have been defeated since 2002.

So just how much of an impact have these factors had on coal closures? Bruce Nilles, director of Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign sent along these numbers:

EXISTING COAL (ANNOUNCED/RETIRED SINCE JAN 1 2010)

• 106 coal plants, 319 units
• 42,895 MW (13% of fleet)
• 150 million MWh (8% of fleet)
• 162 million tons/year of CO2 (9% of fleet)
• 921,417 tons/year of SO2 (16% of fleet)
• Average age: 55 years old
• (For plants with available data – Data from Clean Air Task Force): 2,042 pre-mature deaths, 3,229 heart attacks and 33,053 asthma attacks prevented each year (about 15% of total health impacts from fleet).  All together these plants retiring will save about $15.6 billion in health care costs.

So what’s going to happen to the lights when all that coal gets phased out? According to a group of forward-thinking power providers, there’s already enough unused combined cycle natural gas capacity installed to make up for over 100 GW of closures.

Of course, with questions about the life-cycle emissions of natural gas still unanswered, it remains to be seen how environmentally effective all that gas will be. But with record amounts of investment pouring into renewables and efficiency, and progressive utilities calling increasingly cost-competitive solar “the next big thing in the industry,” the forces are coming together to close the gap.