ST. PAUL, Minn. — If you’re an environmental advocate, you might be happy to know that the vice president doesn’t get the final word.

In picking Sarah Palin for his running mate, John McCain didn’t seem to mind that he and Alaska’s governor take  starkly different approaches to key environmental matters.

Then again, in his drive to mollify conservatives, perhaps McCain sought out someone who rejects the conclusions of most of the world’s scientists.

Unlike McCain, Palin supports drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge – one of those litmus issues as far as green politics.

Even more noteworthy, Palin and McCain depart company on climate change.

In a recent interview with the conservative website Newsmax, Palin said of global warming: “I’m not one … who would attribute it to being man-made.”

That puts her on the opposite side of the fence from McCain and politicians who accepted the conclusions of more than 2,000 independent scientists from around the world who, after the most exhaustive cooperative study ever,  last year attributed global warming to humans.

The report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change also asserted that time is running out as far as taking the  steps needed to prevent potentially catastrophic effects from our fast-rising oceans.

McCain has fully embraced that thinking and sponsored legislation in the Senate aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions through a cap-and-trade system. Barack Obama takes a similar approach.

McCain pushed for inclusion of language in the GOP 2008 Platform that says: “The same human activity that has brought freedom and opportunity to billions has also increased the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.”

Maybe he’ll say to Palin in Minnesota: “We gotta talk.”