Not even close.

If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.

So warned IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri last fall when the IPCC released its major multi-year report synthesizing our understanding of climate science. And remember Pachauri was handpicked by the Bush administration to replace the “alarmist” Bob Watson. It’s the facts that make scientists alarmists, not their politics (see “Desperate times, desperate scientists“).

What happens if we fail to act in time to avert the climate catastrophe?

• We cross carbon-cycle tipping points, such as the loss of the tundra, beyond which there is “no redemption.”
• We head toward CO2 concentrations this century that are triple or quadruple preindustrial levels.
• We should expect 0.8 to 2.0 meters of sea level rise this century, inundating the homes of 100 million people.
• We face desertification of one third the planet and loss of the glaciers that provide water to a billion people.
• We face loss of more than two thirds of the species on the planet, and a hot, acidic, and largely lifeless ocean
• We face humanity’s self-destruction — 6°C total planetary warming.

Worst of all, this utterly preventable catastrophe is probably irreversible on a time-scale of centuries, and thus threatens the health and well-being of our children and the their children and the next 50 generations.

A trillion-dollar climate rescue package would put us on the path to avert these catastrophic outcomes, jumpstart the transition to a clean energy economy, while largely paying for itself in energy savings. It would also sharply reduce the $10 to $20 trillion transfer of wealth to the oil exporters that we can expect over the next quarter century alone. Air pollution would drop sharply and millions of jobs would be created.

What happens if we fail to act in time to avert the financial catastrophe that Treasury Secretary Paulson says is now upon us:

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Our guest blogger is Deborah Brennan, a journalist in Southern California.

Drowning in the gaps left by melting Arctic ice, the polar bears of Alaska have become one of the first creatures to make the endangered species list because of global warming. This was a double blow to Big Oil, as the industry’s pollution is responsible for climate change, and the polar bear seas are sitting on billions of dollars worth of oil and gas. So Gov. Sarah “Pipeline” Palin (R-AK), literally married to the oil industry, is facing down the half-ton carnivore in her legal sights — proving herself more environmentally extreme than Texas oilman Bush.

When the Bush administration reluctantly proposed listing the polar bear as a threatened species early this year, Pipeline Palin sided with the oil and gas industry and countered with a New York Times Op-Ed opposing the federal listing and then, once the administration went through this May, with a lawsuit against its implementation.

Now, it’s hard to believe that anyone not holed up in a militia compound could adopt a position more unfriendly to the Endangered Species Act than Bush and Cheney, but Palin made it clear that the administration was going a bit soft and green on the matter. What’s more, she maintained:

My decision is based on a comprehensive review by state wildlife officials of scientific information from a broad range of climate, ice and polar bear experts.

When University of Alaska professor Rick Steiner sought a copy of that review, the Anchorage Daily News reported, he was informed that the documents he requested would cost $468,784. (Apparently the cost of photocopies has gone up since the Freedom of Information Act was enacted.) Steiner subsequently obtained e-mail records indicating that Alaska state biologists actually supported the listing. He told the Anchorage Daily News:

Even the petroleum-loving Bush administration couldn’t find a way around the science on this issue.

The clear scientific evidence of global warming’s effects was airily dismissed by Palin as “uncertain modeling of possible effects.” In a June, 2008 interview with conservative pundit Glenn Beck, Palin maintained that polar bears are “very, very healthy,” and that “the number of polar bears has risen dramatically in the last 30 years.” In fact, Congressional testimony on the polar bear cites a 17 percent drop in the Southern Beaufort Sea populations since the 1980s, with reductions in skull size, cub survival and adult male weight.

Those declines coincide with the catastropic loss of sea ice on which the bears live — a direct result of climate change, which Palin also dismisses.

In August, Pipeline Palin sued the Fish and Wildlife Service over the polar bear listing. It appears that the person Sen. McCain (R-AZ) plans to put in charge of government reform has pulled a page from the Bush playbook — when faced with findings unfavorable to Big Oil, simply deny the data, silence the scientists, and jam up the courts.

This post was submitted through our Blog Fellows program. Make your own contribution — and get paid for it — by clicking here.

Congressional Quarterly has been suckered by the Greenwasher from Arizona — just like pretty much everyone else, as recently noted.

CQ just ran an article, “McCain Facing Tax vs. Energy Dilemma,” about “The Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008″ (described here) that asserts:

Republican presidential nominee John McCain may have to pick between two of his campaign’s principles next week when the Senate takes up an energy tax bill that would help subsidize new and existing renewable energy incentives with relatively small tax hikes on oil companies.

Then again, maybe he won’t be there to choose.

McCain has campaigned in favor of federal investment in wind power, solar energy, low-emission cars and trucks, and “clean coal” technology, all of which are included in the energy measure. But he also has said repeatedly that he opposes increasing taxes on oil companies.

[With apologies to Jon Stewart] Oh, Congressional Quarterly, why do you mock me?

You might think that a publication with the word “Congressional” in its name would write articles about members of Congress that were based on their Congressional voting records. Well, you wouldn’t think that, because you are readers of Climate Progress and wise in the ways of the world. But some random visitor from outer space would think that. All I can say is, stupid alien.

This is an incredibly easy vote for John McCain, a man of no remaining principles, to go by the last month — he picked a friggin’ global warming denier for is running mate, after all (see “Turns out McCain doesn’t care about global warming“), and he was accused of lying too much by Karl Rove! McCain thinks renewables “dont’ work,” he hates government subsidies for renewables, and his Big Oil buddies who both manage and fund his campaign hate even the tiniest reduction in their pork.

CQ does understand very recent voting history of enough to know what McCain is probably going to do — skip the vote entirely.

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Our guest blogger is Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch.

It may seem like a sideshow to the congressional battle over drilling, but tens of thousands of people may see their lives cut short by air pollution – and they have Joe Barton (R-TX) to thank.

This week, Rep. Barton (given the moniker “Smokey Joe” by the Dallas Morning News for his efforts on behalf of polluters) blocked efforts in Congress to advance a compromise plan to reduce power plant emissions. The compromise, put together by Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) and Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) and Rick Boucher (D-VA), was designed to codify the first phase of the Bush EPA interstate air pollution rule (the so-called “clean air interstate rule” or CAIR) struck down by a federal court.

The Carper-Dingell-Boucher plan also would have taken away a “coal bonus” that the Bush administration inserted into the rule to reward coal-burning companies such as Southern Company. (Among other things, this would have had the effect of reducing costs to Texas electricity consumers compared to the original CAIR plan.) The plan was also designed to trigger more aggressive long-term pollution reductions than contained in the original Bush plan. (The Bush administration spent considerable energy in recent weeks trying to sidetrack this more aggressive long-term strategy.)

Southern Company has vigorously opposed the Carper-Dingell-Boucher initiative. It did not want to lose that coal bonus, and has the power to take action. The head of Southern Company is also chair of the influential power industry lobby, the Edison Electric Institute). The man who crafted the original CAIR rule while at the EPA, Jeffrey Holmstead, is now a top lobbyist for Southern Company at Rudy Giuliani’s lobbying firm.

And EEI is a major contributor to Barton, the Texas Republican who is the “ranking member” of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. So is the coal lobbying front group, the National Mining Association. In fact, Barton has received over a million dollars in campaign contributions from electric utilities.

Because there are only a few working days left in Congress, Dingell and Boucher hoped to proceed under a streamlined process that required Barton’s cooperation.

But Barton said no deal. As reported by E&E News, Barton said he wanted to spend time in the next Congress “thoroughly reviewing not only the CAIR regulations, but the entire Clean Air Act.”

So there you have it. Barton, who in the past has introduced legislation to weaken the Clean Air Act, now is holding the CAIR fix hostage. He wants another crack at weakening the Clean Air Act. The result, according to the EPA, will be thousands of premature deaths, as well as heart attacks, emergency room visits and lost work days. This, of course, will include significant public health damage in Barton’s own state — and will make it harder for Texas and other states to meet national clean air standards.

I have resized some pictures from Hurricane Ike — pictures that are likely to become all-too-common sights in the decades to come, assuming we continue our do-nothing climate policy. Larger versions of these photos are available here.

This is Galveston Island:

This is Galveston.

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