Moody’s Investor Service thinks it has a tip for its friends in the field of finance. From The Hill:

“We believe the White House will reverse course and approve the Keystone XL pipeline, which would ship crude from Canada’s western oil sands to the Gulf Coast,” the ratings agency said in a wide-ranging report Monday on the implications of the elections.

At least one industry group agrees, imagining that the president’s campaign rhetoric signals a change of heart. From the Financial Times:

Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry’s lobby group, said after the election that Mr Obama had moved “about 180 degrees” in his rhetoric towards support for oil and gas production.

Insiders in Mr Obama’s campaign had “implicitly promised he would approve the Keystone XL pipeline”, Mr Gerard said. He added: “It will be a threshold test as to how serious the president is about producing America’s oil and natural gas.”

Keystone XL opponents would be forgiven for responding with a hearty, “Keep dreaming.” After all, it was only 10 months ago that President Obama rejected a permit to build the pipeline.

Clearly the API and Moody’s would like to see the pipeline move forward — but it’s not at all clear why the president would change his mind.

As there were when Obama first rejected its permits, there are four primary arguments for the pipeline:

• It will create jobs.
• It will reduce American dependence on Middle Eastern oil.
• It will prevent Canadian companies from selling the oil to China.
• It will make money for domestic oil companies.

That last point is the one domestic oil companies are most concerned about, unsurprisingly — but it’s also the only one that actually holds up. On the other three points, the argument has only gotten worse since Obama declined to approve the Keystone XL pipeline in January. Let’s walk through them.

It will create jobs.

First of all, the contention that Keystone XL will create a large number of jobs is a subject of enormous debate. Cornell University suggests it will add only 500 to 1,400 temporary jobs in construction. (As ThinkProgress notes, the industry’s numbers included 51 jobs in dancing and choreography.)

But the real issue is that creating jobs, while still important, is less urgent than it was in January. Since then, the economy has added an estimated 1.7 million jobs. Moreover, growth in oil and gas extraction employment (blue line) has risen even faster than the economy on the whole (red line) since the end of the recession. This is not an industry that needs to be goosed.

In summary: This argument is weaker than it was in January.

It will reduce American dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

America’s fossil fuel production has gone up since January.

And as we noted last month and as reinforced by the International Energy Agency this week, the United States will soon be one of the top oil producers in the world — if not the largest overall.

This will not make the United States completely independent of foreign fossil fuel use, but that goal is almost certainly unattainable.

In summary: This argument is weaker than it was in January.

It will prevent Canadian companies from selling the oil to China.

This argument suffered a near-fatal blow last week. As we reported then, from the Wall Street Journal:

Amid rising costs, gyrating prices and a burst of supply competition down south, Canadian oil companies are rethinking investment in one of North America’s earliest and fastest-growing “unconventional” oil frontiers — Alberta’s oil sands.

In short, the argument is that the glut of available oil (see previous point) has made production of tar-sands oil a worse bet for oil companies. Even Moody’s notes this:

[A]pproval will not be quick. A prolonged permitting process risks missing the very oil price boom that inspired Keystone XL in the first place. Still, even if Keystone XL went into operation in 2015 or 2016, Gulf Coast refining and marketing companies would benefit from wider light/heavy crude price differentials.

But according to the Journal, those differentials would be partly dependent on the supply of oil brought by the Keystone XL pipeline.

Assuming that tar-sands producers do move ahead with extraction, getting the product to China necessitates a pipeline to Canada’s western coast — and that’s no sure thing either.

Again, in summary: This argument is weaker than it was in January.

So, as I suggested above, that leaves us with just one argument that really holds up: that Keystone XL will make money for domestic oil companies. Is that compelling enough?

Moody’s and Jack Gerard seem to be banking on the assumption that Obama’s opposition to Keystone XL a year ago was simply a function of the election. That, for some reason, he thought it was more important to cater to his environmentalist base than to curry favor with voters in the heartland. That would be a strange political calculus, to be sure. But it’s the only straw left to grasp — which may be why protests over Keystone XL are ginning back up. Environmentalists, too, fear that Obama’s opposition was only ballot-thin.

Were politics a completely rational enterprise, the evidence at hand — even leaving out the dangers of burning that tar-sands oil! — would suggest that approval of Keystone XL was a worse bet now than 10 months ago. But politics is far from a completely rational enterprise.

This post is part of our November 2012 theme: Post-election hangover — whither the climate?

Get out your wallets, Christmas shoppers! At 10 a.m. tomorrow, the California Air Resources Board will start auctioning carbon credits. (Not sure what the hell I’m talking about? Read this.)

From the San Jose Mercury News:

The event comes six years after former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed AB32, the law that required California to lower its greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 to 1990 levels — the equivalent of a 17 percent reduction.

“It’s the largest carbon market in the United States, and the second largest in the world, behind the European Union,” [CARB spokesman Stanley] Young said. …

The air board estimates the regulation will add 10 cents per gallon to the price of gas for every $10 per ton that industry pays for allowances. On Friday, the futures market pegged the price at $12 a ton, which could result in a 12-cent per gallon increase.

Six years this has taken. At one point, the move faced a lawsuit on the grounds that it didn’t adequately address environmental justice concerns. It was further delayed last year to protect the market from outside manipulation. But, at last, here we are.

If you are wondering what you can buy tomorrow, Platts has your answer.

The auction will offer about 23.126 million vintage 2013 allowances and 39.45 million vintage 2015 allowances. The minimum price that a GHG allowance can be sold for is $10. Each GHG allowance represents one metric ton of emissions. …

The vintage refers to the first year in which a GHG allowance can be used. Compliance entities must hold enough GHG instruments to cover their emissions.

In other words: The CARB is selling the right to emit about 23 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2013 and just shy of 40 million tons in 2015. If you want to emit a ton of CO2 in 2013, it will cost you at least $10 — but, again, this is an auction. It could cost much more. But in 2013, when corporations are looking for extra permits around December, the price of a 2013 permit could skyrocket. That’s the goal of the market: to deter carbon emissions or, at least, to make them expensive.

Obviously these allowances make a great Christmas gift. And if you’re a dirty California polluter who regularly receives coal in his stocking — think twice before you burn it.

This post is part of our November 2012 theme: Post-election hangover — whither the climate?

2012 has been, to date, the hottest year on record. Again, we must note: This record is almost certainly only temporary. Do not read this fact and then spend the next three decades telling everyone about how 2012 was the hottest year ever; by then, it will probably rank somewhere around 30th.

Entirely coincidentally, it has also been one of the most disastrous.

With about six weeks remaining in the year, there have already been 11 natural disasters that have cost $1 billion or more in damage, bringing 2012 to second place on the list of top billion-dollar disaster years. The current record-holder is 2011, when there were 14 billion-dollar disasters. The widespread and intense drought — which as of Nov. 6 still covered at least 60 percent of the lower 48 states — and Hurricane Sandy are expected to go down in history as two of the most costly weather-related disasters since 1980. …

The statistics for this year so far are preliminary, and come from news accounts and insurance industry estimates. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which issues the official numbers, has opted to only release the final figures when they are available, rather than keep a running tally as they have done in previous years.

Probably to avoid spreading panic.

Meanwhile, Yale did its regular survey asking if people want action on climate change [PDF] which showed that people want action on climate change. Some toplines:

• Nearly all Americans (92%) say the president and the Congress should make developing sources of clean energy a “very high” (31%), “high” (38%), or “medium” priority (23%). Very few say it should be a low priority (8%).
• A large majority (77%) say global warming should be a “very high” (18%), “high” (25%), or “medium” priority (34%) for the president and Congress. One in four (23%) say it should be a low priority.
• Six in ten Americans (61%) say the U.S. should reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions regardless of what other countries do.
• A large majority of Americans (88%) say the U.S. should make an effort to reduce global warming, even if it has economic costs.

“Oh yeah?” a bunch of politicians said as their staff put the report in a giant pile on top of a filing cabinet in a back room somewhere. “You don’t say?”

Part of the problem is that these data don’t change much over time. Here’s the report’s graph suggesting that support for action is increasing.

It is! Just not very much at all. Which means that there’s little incentive for politicians to take action: You don’t wonder about the constant, annoying droning sound until it suddenly changes. It’s worth noting that the Yale survey was completed pre-Sandy, so it’s safe to assume that those numbers will be higher next month, at which point that pile in that politician’s back room will grow yet another two centimeters.

(Incidentally, support for the topic du jour, a carbon tax, is limping along at 39 percent — compared to 54 percent opposed.)

So the hottest year-to-date in history coincides with one of the most costly in terms of disaster which coincides with broad, constant support for addressing climate change.

What, exactly, is Congress waiting for?*

* Another check from Chevron.

This post is part of our November 2012 theme: Post-election hangover — whither the climate?

Today, a bunch of politicians who lost their jobs last week are headed back to Capitol Hill to vote on legislation. It’s a weird artifact of democracy, that people who voters have decided they don’t want representing them are going to Washington to represent them, but: what’re ya gonna do.

It’s also weird because lame duck sessions often deal with things that no one wanted to figure out right before an election. So these unwanted politicians (well, not all unwanted, but certainly all unpopular) will make final decisions on some of the most controversial issues. But on the plus side, at least maybe they’ll pass some legislation.

Among the topics expected to be discussed: our old friend the wind production tax credit. The PTC, as we old hands call it, provides an incentive to energy providers to use wind energy, a long-standing effort to level the playing field with fossil fuels. But since fossil fuels would rather not have that playing field be level, they’ve vehemently opposed renewal of the PTC, which expires at the end of the year. The American Wind Energy Association believes that failing to renew the PTC could cost as many as 37,000 jobs, to which fossil fuel companies say: “Meh.”

So it’s up to the lame duck Congress. But just because some members of Congress are on their way out doesn’t mean that the dirty energy lobby is. From Politico:

[A] loose coalition of well-funded conservative groups is hoping to kill the tax credit by making it toxic for Republicans.

The strategy is twofold, according to tax-credit opponents interviewed by POLITICO: First, tie the tax credit to failed renewable energy companies like Solyndra that House Republicans have railed against for more than a year. Second, argue that the country can’t afford to maintain the tax credit at a time of economic uncertainty.

These are both stupid, transparently weak arguments. To the first point, the failure of Solyndra was a rare bad investment by the Department of Energy, and is an issue that has gained almost no traction politically. As for the second point, the PTC already exists — so arguing that “economic uncertainty” necessitates its expiration is ridiculous. In a growing economy that’s adding jobs, there’s only one demonstrable way to do damage on this issue: letting the PTC expire. Companies are already cutting their workforces in anticipation that demand will slow.

It’s possible that the good guys could actually win, at least in this case. The Senate would pass an extension, and the president would sign it. But:

Things are a little murkier in the House, where Speaker John Boehner received dueling letters in September on the tax credit. One, from 47 House Republicans, urged him to kill it. Another, from 50 House freshmen, called on GOP leadership to extend expiring tax credits.

“I’m fairly optimistic that it will happen in the lame duck,” said Richard Caperton, director of clean energy investment at the Center for American Progress.

The question is simple. Change nothing or purposely hinder a still rapidly growing industry? Only one thing is different now than the last time this issue was raised. Now, some of the people voting on the issue have firsthand experience in what it’s like to have someone else vote away your job.

This post is part of our November 2012 theme: Post-election hangover — whither the climate?

As head of Americans for Tax Reform (where “reform” means “gleeful obliteration”), Norquist has for years held conservative politicians hostage to a commitment to oppose any new taxes. This pledge — an actual, physical signed pledge to not raise taxes — instilled a de facto obstructionism that helped kill any bipartisan compromise during last year’s budget talks.

Therefore, this report from the National Journal is a surprise.

In a step that may help crack open the partisan impasse on climate change, Grover Norquist, the influential lobbyist who has bound hundreds of Republicans to a pledge never to raise taxes, told National Journal that a proposed “carbon tax swap” — taxing carbon pollution in exchange for cutting the income tax — would not violate his pledge. …

[C]reating a new “energy tax” would be viewed by some as political suicide. And Republicans who have signed Norquist’s pledge would be barred from supporting it.

That’s where the “swap” side of the policy comes in: The new carbon tax would be paired with a cut in the income tax — something Republicans have long sought. The idea essentially would be to cut the tax on income and move it over to carbon pollution — keeping the proposal revenue-neutral.

Norquist’s new openness on this issue implies that he’s perhaps more interested in relieving the tax burden on wealthy Americans (like himself) than in unilaterally opposing taxes. But we’ll set that aside for now because embracing him in this moment suits our political motives (a line of reasoning that would be hard for Norquist to fault). But, wow! A carbon tax!

We noted increased calls for a carbon tax last week, suggesting that the primary remaining stumbling block was the hyper-conservative House. Norquist’s statement is not carte blanche for the House GOP, but it cracks the door, provides political cover to representatives who are looking for an out. (It may also be a chance for Norquist to salvage his reputation after an election year that some have implied weakened his influence. If he says it’s OK to do something that the House might have done anyway, he can suggest that it was his OK, his king-making, that got the deal done.)

There’s a lot of reason to still be bearish on the idea that a carbon tax will be implemented, and it is certainly the case that a carbon tax tied to income-tax reductions is a pyrrhic victory. After all, the goal of a carbon tax is to reduce carbon emissions, and the more emissions are reduced, the less tax revenue comes in — something that Norquist is almost certainly aware of.

But in the interim, there’s now some possible breathing space to make a deal. Even Grover Norquist, it seems, doesn’t want the government to drown in rising sea water.

UPDATE: Or, well, I guess he does. Americans for Tax Reform this morning made its — and Norquist’s — opposition to a carbon tax clear using the following analogy.

Two smaller tapeworms are not an improvement over one big tapeworm. Tapeworms and taxes grow.

Yes, but tapeworms are also great for losing weight. I don’t know how that’s relevant, but that’s my counterargument.

This post is part of our November 2012 theme: Post-election hangover — whither the climate?

If you want to feel optimistic about the possibilities for climate action in the wake of the election, here are the tea leaves to read.

Nineteen percent of voters were beneath the age of 30, something no one in D.C. expected. Young voter translates into “not primarily obsessed with my Medicare, hence able to think about the world.” So the pros know this is the demographic that cares about climate.

Meanwhile, 41 percent of voters told exit pollers that the response to Sandy was an important factor in their vote. The climate silence of the campaign was broken by … the climate. And then Obama got about the biggest cheer of his victory speech with a reference to wanting to save America from the destructive power of a warming planet.

Of course, if you want to feel pessimistic, there’s always: Sandy, which demonstrated we’ve waited a long time to get started. Not to mention the warmest year in American history, now concluding. Not to mention our epic drought. Or the small fact that this was the year we broke the Arctic.

The point is, since we’re running out of spare presidential terms in which to turn things around, we need to seize the moment for big, transformative change.

The first, best test will the Keystone pipeline. If Obama nerves himself up to defy the fossil fuel industry and block it, it will be the first time he’s helped to keep some carbon in the ground. This is the guy who, in his first term, opened up the Powder River Basin to Peabody, and the Arctic to Shell.

If Keystone gets built, it will carry exactly as much carbon as the president’s auto mileage standards will save. It will literally negate the one really good thing he’s done.

But say it gets blocked — say the grassroots wing of the environmental movement sees it can trust the president. Imagine the combined power of the D.C. enviros and the folks on the ground, finally building the joint movement that can amass the power necessary to, say, put a price on carbon.

They don’t call it Keystone for nothing.

This post is part of our November 2012 theme: Post-election hangover — whither the climate?

Barack Obama can take pride in having fought off a formidable array of deep-pocketed revanchists. As President, however, he is faced with an infinitely larger challenge, one that went unmentioned in the debates but that poses a graver threat than any “fiscal cliff.” …

Last week, in his acceptance speech, Obama mentioned climate change once again. Which is good, but, at this late date, he gets no points for mentioning. The real test of his determination will be a willingness to step outside the day-to-day tumult of Washington politics and establish a sustained sense of urgency. There will always be real and consuming issues to draw his and the political class’s attention: a marital scandal at the C.I.A., a fiscal battle, an immigration bill, an international crisis. But, all the while, a greater menace grows ever more formidable. …

The effort should begin with a sustained Presidential address to the country, perhaps from the Capitol, on Inauguration Day. It was there that John Kennedy initiated a race to the moon—meagre stakes compared with the health of the planet we inhabit.

And it’s not only latte-sipping Manhattan liberals calling for action. Republican Christine Todd Whitman, former governor of New Jersey and head of the EPA under George W. Bush, has this to say:

If nothing else, the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy, both fiscal and physical, should put the issue of climate change front and center for President Obama’s second term.

It’s unfortunate that Democrats failed to pass cap-and-trade to limit carbon emissions when they had control of both chambers of Congress, as getting it through the House is going to be a tough challenge now. Despite past resistance to federal cap-and-trade proposals, this solution should stay on the table. It is my hope that my Republican colleagues will see the wisdom of a market-based system for funding a public good — all very much Republican principles.

Over at The New York Times, Cass Sunstein makes his own call for climate action. Sunstein, who headed the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs during most of Obama’s first term, says Obama should follow the example of another iconic two-term president, Ronald Reagan, who took action to protect the ozone layer:

Reagan’s economists found that the costs of phasing out ozone-depleting chemicals were a lot lower than the costs of not doing so — largely measured in terms of avoiding cancers that would otherwise occur. Presented with that analysis, Reagan decided that the issue was pretty clear.

Much the same can be said about climate change. Recent reports suggest that the economic cost of Hurricane Sandy could reach $50 billion and that in the current quarter, the hurricane could remove as much as half a percentage point from the nation’s economic growth. The cost of that single hurricane may well be more than five times greater than that of a usual full year’s worth of the most expensive regulations, which ordinarily cost well under $10 billion annually. True, scientists cannot attribute any particular hurricane to greenhouse gas emissions, but climate change is increasing the risk of costly harm from hurricanes and other natural disasters. Economists of diverse viewpoints concur that if the international community entered into a sensible agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the economic benefits would greatly outweigh the costs.

And of course the biggest, boomingest voice for putting climate at the top of the agenda has been that of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I). After surveying the astonishing damage that superstorm Sandy inflicted on his city, he endorsed the president in a much-cited op-ed entitled “A Vote for a President to Lead on Climate Change.”

We’re used to hearing environmentalists calling for action to fight climate change. We’re not so used to hearing other, more influential people do so. Might climate change break out of the environmental ghetto for good this time?

This post is part of our November 2012 theme: Post-election hangover — whither the climate?

Oil shale is a weird energy source. It’s a rock that contains shale oil, a type of hydrocarbon that differs from regular petroleum in part because it needs to be heated in order to be released. And it differs from the sort of shale in the Bakken Formation that’s feeding North Dakota’s oil boom — it’s much harder to extract. So hard to extract, in fact, that oil companies don’t even really try any more.

But that doesn’t mean they’re not irritated that the government intends to lock away federal land that sits over oil shale. After all, oil companies are ridiculously thin-skinned and greedy and use any opportunity to score political points. From The Hill:

The Interior Department on Friday issued a final plan to close 1.6 million acres of federal land in the West originally slated for oil shale development. …

Interior’s Bureau of Land Management cited environmental concerns for the proposed changes. Among other things, it excised lands with “wilderness characteristics” and areas that conflicted with sage grouse habitats.

Under the plan, 677,000 acres in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming would be open for oil shale exploration. Another 130,000 acres in Utah would be set aside for tar sands production. …

“This is another step in the wrong direction that limits development and investment in one of the nation’s most energy-rich areas and goes against a prior government decision that would allow for research and development over a much wider geographical area,” [said some jerk from the American Petroleum Institute.]

That “prior government decision”? It was “laid out in the final days of the George W. Bush administration.”

Ha ha. Oh, well if that guy thinks it’s a good idea …

Just yesterday, we noted a lawsuit hoping to prevent a Colorado water district from reserving a large amount of White River water for possible future oil-shale drilling. Prior to the decision, a coalition of groups wrote a letter to the acting director of the Bureau of Land Management expressing concern about the use of and risk to the region’s water from possible oil-shale exploration. As the West grows more and more dry, even small redirections of water become a big issue.

The next step in Interior’s decision-making process for the oil-shale lands is a 30-day comment period. And so, despite the fact that the government is still giving oil companies hundreds of thousands of acres to play with, expect some protest. Oil companies like to protest, because they are spoiled brats, the end.

This post is part of our November 2012 theme: Post-election hangover — whither the climate?

Beginning today I’m excited to introduce a new thing here at Grist: monthly themes!

As you may surmise, this is something that will happen every month. And every month has its own theme.

You can’t hum our themes. (At least I think.) But you’ll be able to see them play out each month in different aspects of our coverage, our posts, our tweets and Facebook postings, our chats, and everything else we do.

Our theme for November is: What’s next for the climate? Now that we know who’ll be sitting in the White House and running Congress come 2013, and now that we’ve seen a devastating storm pummel our most populous city, it’s time to take stock.

We’ll have our own Grist team as well as smart observers and movement leaders weigh in on what’s going to happen — and what should be happening — as the Earth’s warming becomes an ever more tangible presence in our lives.

Think of it as our post-election hangover survival guide. In fact, that’s one of the pieces we’ve got in the works. Here’s a smattering of the other stuff we’ve got on tap:

• Bill McKibben and other environmental leaders lay out their visions for the next year’s conversation around climate.

• U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) explains his carbon-tax bill.

• Alex Steffen will debut Carbon Zero, his vision for how the city of the future can solve today’s climate dilemmas.

• Author Steven Johnson talks with us about his new Future Perfect and what the “peer progressive” movement has to offer the climate.

• What sort of effect will the so-called fiscal cliff negotiations have on clean energy, green jobs, and the environment?

You can find all of our theme-related pieces here.

We’ll do our best to pull together the strands of this theme and those to follow — and, this being Grist, to keep them funny wherever we can. As we do all this, we want to hear from you, of course. In comments below, or in email, by telepathy — whatever works for you! — tell us how you think we should approach this month’s theme, and what other themes you think we should be tackling in coming months.

Throughout this long, crazy campaign, there’s been a tension simmering between empiricists like Nate Silver and Sam Wang, who cited poll data showing Obama with a small but durable lead, and pundits who trusted their “guts” and the “narrative,” both of which indicated that Romney had all the momentum after the first debate.

In the face of model projections like Silver’s, Jonah Goldberg said that “the soul … is not so easily number-crunched.” David Brooks warned that “experts with fancy computer models are terrible at predicting human behavior.” Joe Scarborough said “anybody that thinks that this race is anything but a tossup right now is such an ideologue.” Peggy Noonan said that “the vibrations are right” for a Romney win. All sorts of conservative pundits were convinced the Romney campaign just felt like a winner.

You know how that turned out. Jon Stewart put it way better than I could:

Empiricism won. It didn’t win because it’s a truer faith or a superior ideology. It won because it works. It is the best way humans have figured out to set aside their perceptual limitations and cognitive shortcomings, to get a clear view of what’s happening and what’s to come.

As it happens, there’s another issue in American politics where empiricists are forecasting the future and being ignored. Here’s what the Nate Silvers of climate science are up to:

Looking back at 10 years of atmospheric humidity data from NASA satellites, [John Fasullo and Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research] examined two dozen of the world’s most sophisticated climate simulations. They found the simulations that most closely matched actual humidity measurements were also the ones that predicted the most extreme global warming.

In other words, by using real data, the scientists picked simulation winners and losers.

“The models at the higher end of temperature predictions uniformly did a better job,” Fasullo said. The simulations that fared worse — the ones predicting smaller temperature rises — “should be outright discounted,” he added.

The Washington Post spells out what that means:

That means the world could be in for a devastating increase of about eight degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, resulting in drastically higher seas, disappearing coastlines and more severe droughts, floods and other destructive weather.

Such an increase would substantially overshoot what the world’s leaders have identified as the threshold for triggering catastrophic consequences. In 2009, heads of state agreed to try to limit warming to 3.6 degrees, and many countries want a tighter limit.

This is in keeping with a recent report from PricewaterhouseCoopers [PDF], which showed that, to hold warming to that 3.6 degree target (2 degree Celsius), global average carbon intensity would have to decline by 5.1 percent a year, on average, between now and 2050. That rate of decarbonization has never been achieved, ever, for as long as we have records. It is, the report notes dryly, “highly unrealistic.” Even to limit warming to 7.2 degrees (4 degrees Celsius) would require nearly quadrupling the current rate of decarbonization. And at our current rate rate of decarbonization (1.6 percent) we are on track for a temperature rise of 10.8 degrees (6 degrees Celsius) by 2100.

Let’s be clear about this. Scientists consider 3.6 degrees catastrophic. There are serious scientists who doubt that human civilization can endure at all in the face of 7.2 degrees. And we are headed for 10.8.

In short, the Nate Silvers of climate science are forecasting a landslide — that is, humanity under a landslide of drought, floods, disease, and dislocation. They’re telling us that unless we change our campaign strategy, i.e., undertake rapid, large-scale efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change, our chances of surviving and prospering are dim and getting dimmer.

We simply haven’t come to terms with what empirical science is telling us. The mainstream media hasn’t come to terms with it. Most public intellectuals have not come to terms with it. And almost no politicians have come to terms with it. (Republicans deny it, most centrists ignore it, and Dems mouth platitudes about it.)

We all sound like pundits, going with our “guts.” The science feels too scary, too abrasive, too implausible. The hippies out there protesting over climate change feel “unserious.” The notion that energy prices might have to rise or lifestyles change feels “alarmist.” We talk about climate, if we talk about it at all, in terms of folk wisdom and time-worn prejudices. We sound like Peggy Noonan with her vibrations.

It’s our own version of “math you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better.” Call it math you do as an American to make yourself feel better.

This election is being hailed in many quarters as a triumph for Nate Silver and forces of empiricism. But on the biggest, most pressing risk facing the country, those involved in U.S. politics might as well be witch doctors. Or worse, Karl Rove.

The Romney campaign’s refusal to grapple with inconvenient facts left them “shellshocked” by their loss. But all they lost was an election, and there will always be another election. In the climate race, losses are permanent and irreversible. There will be no recounts or rematches.

This post is part of our November 2012 theme: Post-election hangover — whither the climate?