Salon liked my post “How do we really know humans are causing global warming?” but wanted something more in-depth and … serious. The result is “The cold truth about climate change: Deniers say there’s no consensus about global warming. Well, there’s not. There’s well-tested science and real-world observations [that are much more worrisome].”

James Hansen read the first draft and wrote me back, “Very important for the public to understand this — why has nobody articulated this already?” I don’t know the answer. All I can say is that while I was writing the article, the central point dawned on me:

The more I write about global warming, the more I realize I share some things in common with the doubters and deniers who populate the blogosphere and the conservative movement. Like them, I am dubious about the process used by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to write its reports. Like them, I am skeptical of the so-called consensus on climate science as reflected in the IPCC reports. Like them, I disagree with people who say “the science is settled.” But that’s where the agreement ends.

The science isn’t settled — it’s unsettling, and getting more so every year as the scientific community learns more about the catastrophic consequences of uncontrolled greenhouse gas emissions.

The big difference I have with the doubters is that they believe the IPCC reports seriously overstate the impact of human emissions on the climate — whereas the actual observed climate data clearly show they dramatically understate the impact.

I point out many instances of this in the article. For instance, “The recent [Arctic] sea-ice retreat is larger than in any of the (19) IPCC [climate] models” — and that was a Norwegian expert in 2005. Since then, the Arctic retreat has stunned scientists by accelerating, losing an area equal to Texas and California just last summer

The Salon article also discusses why I think “the scientific community, the progressive community, environmentalists and media are making a serious mistake by using the word ‘consensus’ to describe the shared understanding scientists have about the every-worsening impacts that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are having on this planet.” Part of the reason is that “When scientists and others say there is a consensus, many if not most people probably hear ‘consensus of opinion’ ” whereas, as I explain, “science doesn’t work by consensus of opinion. Science is in many respects the exact opposite of decision by consensus.”

Another reason is that the IPCC ‘consensus’ clearly understates what we face from uncontrolled greenhouse gas emissions. As the article concludes:

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Dan Weiss, the Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress, has written an excellent piece on why we can expect a series of inevitably flawed economic analyses of the Lieberman Warner Climate Security Act (S. 2191) in the coming months:

Many of these studies will likely predict that the reductions of greenhouse gases required by the cap-and-trade system will lead to huge hikes in electric rates, reductions in jobs, and all sorts of other economic havoc.

But these studies also have one other common element: They will eventually be proven wrong once the program is underway.

These studies base their cost assumptions on existing technologies and practices, which means that they do not account for the vast potential for innovation once binding reductions and deadlines are set. The Lieberman Warner Climate Security Act anticipates the need for innovation and creates economic incentives to spur engineers and managers to devise technologies and methods to meet the greenhouse gas reduction requirements more cheaply.

This isn’t the first time that pollution control studies have produced inaccurate predictions about the future. Remember what analysts predicted about acid rain controls from 1989 to 1990?

And the article continues on to review that history and then look at the important reports of McKinsey & Co and Nicholas Stern, which makes clear the cost of action is far, far lower than the cost of inaction.

If you’re interested in the IPCC’s take on this — they explain why the literature is clear that action is not costly — this post summarizes what they report.

Last week the Center for American Progress began a series called “It’s Easy Being Green” meant to recognize the steps communities, individuals, and organizations are taking to transform our country’s energy-use. Last week’s column featured a new kind of neighborhood:

Pringle Creek Community in Salem, Oregon, named the 2007 Green Land Development of the Year by the National Association of Home Builders, may be the greenest neighborhood in the country. It uses 35 sustainable goals to guide planning and construction, including building an entire neighborhood of carbon neutral homes, encouraging contractors to use biodiesel, and creating a community garden.

All development homes can employ a geothermal heating and cooling system that reduces heating bills to a quarter of conventional costs, and homes outfitted with solar-generating photovoltaic cells can bring their bills to zero.

The new homes, built while preserving 80 percent of existing trees, are constructed with 100 percent Forest Stewardship Council-certified lumber. Neighborhood streets use porous paving permitting 90 percent of rainwater to go through asphalt and concrete, eventually entering the aquifer as clean water.

A custom home nearing completion is listed for $432,000. The 1,460-square-foot home scored 103 points from the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, which is the highest score ever recorded by LEED.

The community is also working on a sustainable living center that will serve as an educational tool offering hands-on and experiential learning, and social and educational events.

Despite having campaigned as a green governor and introduced a ‘green’ energy plan, Virginia’s Governor Tom Kaine is not living up to his claims. While Kathleen Sebelius (KS) is withstanding intense heat from industry lobbyists and state legislators for her opposition to a coal plant expansion, the only campaign promise Gov. Kaine is keeping is to Dominion Power, which gave at least $135,000 to his campaign.

As Glenn Hurowitz notes over at Huffington Post – energy-efficient light bulbs just aren’t enough…

Meanwhile, Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano is celebrating the world’s largest solar plant slated for construction 70 miles outside Phoenix.

The plant has been named Solana, and will have a capacity of 280 megawatts, “enough to power 70,000 homes while avoiding over 400,000 tons of greenhouse gases” the company said. Construction of the Solana Generating Station will create about 1,500 construction jobs, and it would employ 85 full-time workers once it’s operational, Abengoa Solar said.

A few thoughts come to mind. I’d like to think the difference is that Arizona has a renewable portfolio standard, while Virginia does not (nor Kansas) – hence the battles. But, as we’re seeing in Kansas right now, the difference is that oh-so-tempting-mistress, money.

But their money is heading the wrong direction. Coal shouldn’t be paying for permission to build; they should be paying for permission to pollute (or trying to figure out how to pollute significantly less). Some argue that carbon constraints would devastate industries like coal because the changes they’d have to make would be too expensive.

Grant me a crazy thought here: Is it just me, or have they got a lot of money they’re throwing around irresponsibly? How would those numbers line up? Candidate donations, bribes to universities, the cost of supporting presidential primary debates, lobbying the Hill, PR campaigns … versus what it would cost to invest in researching carbon capture technology, scrubbers, biomass co-firing retrofits, or preparing for a carbon cap.

Their spending choices certainly don’t make me think “Oh poor coal” once we put a price on carbon. And as for Gov. Kaine – we had higher expectations,and in this era of scrutinizing coal, shame on you if you thought you could fool your constituents and environmentalists.

– Kari M.

Post columnist Sebastian Mallaby, in an absurdly titled column, “Obama’s Missing Ideas,” proves once again that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Obama’s ideas about climate solutions are probably the very last place one can find something missing.

Obama has a terrific climate plan, full of winning ideas, as I have blogged many times. Yet Mallaby, claims that “good ideas are actually quite scarce. Just take a look at climate change.”

Mallaby’s “case” is based on two climate ideas many people have always thought were lame (which he never actually bothers to link to Obama), one climate problem that is pretty straightforward to solve, and one idea Mallaby thinks is new that is in fact quite old, is not really a climate idea, and as such has limited climate benefits.

First he says, “A couple of years back, ethanol was touted as a good answer to global warming.” Uhh, no. Corn ethanol, which is what he attacks, was not considered a “good answer to global warming” by any energy or climate expert I have ever met. To the extent climate advocates even tolerated the fuel, it was strictly as a bridge to cellulosic ethanol. To the extent that corn ethanol was supported on policy grounds by politicians [as opposed to support for the farmers or a desire not to offend Iowans], it is primarily from people who are concerned about our dependence on imported oil, not global warming.

Does Mallaby even know that Obama supports “a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard” which would block any fuel that increases greenhouse gas emissions — or that he supports accelerating the development of cellulosic (i.e. low-carbon) ethanol? These are good ideas.

Next Mallaby complains about “carbon trading with developing countries”:

The system developed under the Kyoto Protocol allows companies in the rich world to pay companies in the poor world to reduce emissions. This sounds like another smart idea: Emissions can be cut cheaply in developing countries, so we get to reach our climate goal without too steep a financial penalty. But emissions trading with developing countries has been a bust. China has deliberately designed factories to release prodigious quantities of greenhouse gases, then pocketed billions for redesigning them.

Well, first off. This is not, as Mallaby claims, “carbon trading with developing countries” — since they don’t buy any carbon permits from us. This is the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Second, lots of people, including me, always thought this was a dumb idea. I don’t know what Obama thinks of the CDM — among his dozens of climate ideas, he does support “international offsets under the carbon cap to promote the transfer of low carbon energy to developing countries.” That is perfectly reasonable.

Mallaby’s conclusion: “So two apparently excellent climate-change ideas have been rudely pierced.”

My conclusion: “Two lousy/dubious ideas in theory have been shown to be lousy/dubious in practice.”

In either case, I don’t see how this reflects badly on Obama’s climate ideas. As if to underscore my point, Mallaby veers his SUV off the road entirely….

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