Maybe Climate Progress isn’t alarmist after all. Maybe this future is nearer than everyone thinks:

I was called “over-alarmist” by one of the people who took my bet that the Arctic would be ice free by 2020. But one of the country’s top ice experts, non-alarmist Professor Wieslaw Maslowski of the Naval Postgraduate School, told an American Geophysical Union audience this week:

My claim is that the global climate models underestimate the amount of heat delivered to the sea ice….

Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007. So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative.

No, I haven’t spent the $1000 yet, but I might take some more bets….

This hurricane season may have surprised the experts by only being “average.” But it ain’t over yet! Well, officially it ended two weeks ago, but don’t tell that to Mother Nature:

Tropical Storm Olga triggered floods and landslides in this Caribbean nation Wednesday, killing at least eight people in the Dominican Republic and in Puerto Rico and forcing thousands to flee their homes.

You can read more about Olga here.

The Center for American Progress is represented in Bali (at the UNFCCC talks) by Kit Batten, Managing Director of Energy and Environmental Policy (and recently a co-author of “Capturing the Energy Opportunity“). Earlier this week she spoke at a press conference sparked by Senator John Kerry’s attendence at the negotiations.

Batten reports that she’s been fielding one question repeatedly: What is the U.S. doing to address climate change? Her statement is published below, in which she also discusses policy points central to moving forward:

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I have a long column at Salon.com, “Desperate times, desperate scientists,” which discusses how dire the climate situation is and how desperate climate scientists have become in the face of global inaction.

In general, I am a fan of what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has done — and they certainly deserve the Nobel Prize they shared with Al Gore. That said, at the end of the Salon piece I argue for disbanding it:

In fact, I think that with the release of the recent synthesis report, the IPCC has reached the end of its usefulness. Anyone who isn’t persuaded by that document and the general desperation of international climate scientists is unlikely to be moved by yet another such assessment and more begging. In particular, skeptical Americans are unlikely to be convinced by another international report that focuses on international climate impacts.

We could use a new definitive analysis by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences on climate science, U.S. impacts, and solutions. That analysis should also do something the IPCC doesn’t — namely, look at plausible worst-case scenarios, given that such scenarios typically form the basis for most of our security and health policies.

It would be harder for Americans to ignore an Academy study than the IPCC reports. An Academy study would also be more likely to get thorough attention from the U.S. media and possibly even from conservatives….

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