John McCain's vice presidential running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, made her big debut at the GOP National Convention Wednesday, when she accepted her party's nomination with a high-profile speech.

While her focus was on boosting McCain's reform credentials, downplaying Democrat Barack Obama's experience, and focusing as often as possible on national security, she touched on some energy and environmental issues.

Environmentalists have been critical, to say the least, of Palin's record. She supports drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (McCain has not), opposes listing the polar bear as a threatened species (as the Bush Administration has done) and has said she doesn't believe humans are responsible for contributing to global warming (contrary to virtually every credible scientist on Earth).

In her speech Wednesday, she spent roughly 15% of her words on energy issues. Here's a look at some of what she said:

1. "I suspended the state fuel tax."
   A reference to McCain's campaign pledge to suspend the federal gas tax during the summer driving season, Palin referenced her state-level initiative. Experts have roundly criticized this proposal as nothing more than pandering, since it would do little to affect prices and would obscure the silver lining in high energy prices: investments in greater efficiency, like smaller more fuel efficient cars. ...

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Toxics Targeting is one of New York's best kept secrets. A firm devoted to making government data accessible to everyone, it focuses on mapping the sits of spills, leaking underground oil tanks and other environmental problems, both small and large.

The maps give homeowners -- and, critically, home buyers -- information they need to make wise choices, to address lingering pollution issues, and to hold government and industry to account for fouling the environment and threatening human health.

The firm's latest project is to make the most detailed maps of toxic sites in the state available on the Web. More than 270,000 potentially toxic sites are mapped, showing environmental hazards in multiple Google map views. ...

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One measure of John McCain's decision to pick Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate can be seen on the governor's biography page on the Alaska state Web site. Or, not seen. There was so much interest -- suddenly -- in the outside-the-Beltway choice, that the servers have, by all appearances, crashed.

The political calculus that led McCain to Palin appears to be that outsider status, in an election year when changing Washington is key; her executive experience, with two major party tickets otherwise chockablock with Senators; and her sex, in an election that has some Hillary Clinton Democrats leaning Republican; and even her age (she was the youngest governor ever elected in Alaska) at a time when Obama's youth and McCain's age have been campaign issues.

From a green perspective, McCain's choice further distances him from the maverick policies that had made him a favorite Republican among environmentalists that typically support Democrats. McCain's early championship of a global warming cap-and-trade bill in the Senate, in 2003, is the hallmark of his environmental credibility. It helped push the GOP's platform to acknowledge the reality of global warming, and to shy away from drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, despite the centrality of offshore drilling to McCain's energy agenda.

Palin, on environmental issues, embodies a distinctly Alaskan perspective. It's a state that has, after all, run on oil royalties and pork-barrel spending from its favorite son, Sen. Ted Stevens, who's been indicted (and nominated for reelection) for allegedly taking bribe-like gifts from an oil services company. When many states are suffering from record deficits, Alaska, like an oil company, is flush: "Our state government coffers are bursting at the seams because 85% to 90% of our budget comes from oil and gas developments," Palin told Investor's Business Daily in July. ...

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The world is spending $300 billion every year to subsidize fossil fuels that pollute the air, wreck the climate ... and run the world's economy.

So what if we, as taxpayers, stopped spending $300 billion on coal, oil and natural gas, and started spending it instead on wind, sun and water?

That's the question at the heart of a new report from the United Nations Environment Program, which concludes that eliminating fuel subsidies would not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but might just inspire new economic growth. (Further, it concludes that fossil fuels subsidies sold as a way to help the poor keep the lights on actually do more to help the rich.) ...

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The argument for offshore oil drilling has focused, wrongly, on current gasoline prices.

It's been well established that increased offshore oil drilling would make, at best, a few cents of difference on pump prices in about 10 years, assuming that the world's insatiable thirst for oil doesn't continue to increase, which is about as likely as Dick Cheney giving up hunting.

The argument against oil drilling has, also wrongly, focused on the potential environmental disasters in store from offshore drilling. Congress and past presidents restricted offshore oil drilling because of catastrophic spills that turned public opinion, particularly the opinion of beach-goers and wealthy coastal landowners, soundly against the idea of energy exploration near their ocean views.

At least, I thought the environmental disaster argument was wrong -- because it misses a larger point: Investing in oil now is like deciding it's a good time to get into the subprime mortgage business. The game ending, and you've already lost. Better to invest in alternatives now, while we still have enough oil to run the economy, than to postpone the inevitable and invite a future of persistent scarcity and high costs that dwarf those we've endured recently. (This is the pragmatic argument, ignoring completely for a moment that weaning ourselves off oil and coal will be essential to solve the global warming crisis.)

But maybe the offshore oil-environmental catastrophe argument is right after all.

Exhibit A: Exxon-Mobil. ...

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It's hard not to be a little freaked out by Russia's incursion into Georgia and the new and slippery icy patch it set between the U.S. and our old Cold War adversary.

While I didn't live through under-the-desk air-raid drills, the elementary school in my hometown did proclaim itself a nuclear fallout shelter, and the thought that continent-spanning nations, and not just rogue zealots, are getting back into the game of international belligerence is off-putting, to say the least. (The irony of President Bush's missive against foreign policy "bullying and intimidation" is not lost on me, particularly since our fully-committed military no doubt played a huge strategic role in Russia's decision to use such overwhelming force in Georgia -- but the prospect of some other Superpower, one whose leaders are anointed rather than elected, engaging in bullying and intimidating its way to global hegemony seems even worse.)

But a new war, cold or hot, isn't the only concern we need to have, when it comes to Russia. Consider the climate.

Already, the prospect of a strong new worldwide agreement to curtail greenhouse gas emissions has dimmed by the failure of economic talks, the faltering economy and Bush's longstanding opposition to a United Nations-led effort.

Russia has never had a strong incentive to participate...

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Has the ethanol boom led to the rash of E. coli-contaminated beef recalls?

It's possible. Here's how:

The demand for ethanol, the fuel additive and purported gas substitute, has been higher than ever because Congress started requiring a higher percentage of ethanol in the nation's food supply. As has been well documented, the increased corn production has enriched chemical fertilizer and pesticide companies, increased agricultural runoff has fed a near-record dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico and the diversion of corn from food and feed to fuel has contributed to a worldwide run-up in food commodity prices. (These are only the start to corn-based ethanol's problems; if we planted all U.S. cropland in corn, it would still only supply about 20% of our demand, and requires so much fossil fuel fertilizer that we'd still be contributing nearly as much to global warming and importing loads of energy.)

The high price of corn has also made it hard on conventional -- if that's the right word -- beef ranchers, who have for decades converted cheap corn into profits by feeding it to cows on crowded feed lots.

It's already been reported that some ranchers have turned to the waste from ethanol plants to feed their cows, and that the switch makes the cows produce even more E. coli bacteria ...

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Oil giant Shell has been slapped down for a momentous bit of greenwashing.

In a British advertising blitz, Shell referred to its development of the Alberta oil sands and its construction of the largest U.S. oil refinery as "sustainable," statements that the U.K. Advertising Standards Authority, responding to a complaint by WWF, said were untruthful and unsubstantiated because they implied these projects were environmentally benign.

The key question was: What is sustainable?

Shell, in its arguments to the ad authority, defined the concept as providing cheap energy to meet social and economic needs of future generations, while the ad clearly implied that sustainability had everything to do with protecting the environment. ...

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A lobbying group on the payroll of the chemical industry is launching a public relations blitz aimed at derailing California's proposal to ban Bisphenol A in products designed for babies and children under the age of 3. California is among about 12 states to consider banning Bisphenol A, since the federal government has been slow to act on a growing list of concerns.

Independent research has uncovered worrying qualities to Bisphenol A; it mimics hormones, could affect normal development and reproduction and would have its most dramatic effects on young bodies undergoing rapid development. The list of potential effects is long and damning: breast and prostate cancer, obesity, diabetes, brain and liver damage.

In April, Canada became the first nation in the world to label Bisphenol A potentially hazardous. In the United States, top-level scientists at the National Toxicology Program have raised concerns. The Food and Drug Administration has appointed a panel to review the chemical's safety; until now, however, the FDA has favored hand-picked scientific reviews endorsed by the industry, rather than those peer reviewed by independent scientists. Wal-Mart and Toys R Us have pledged to phase out the sale of products containing Bisphenol A.

But the plastics industry stands to lose profits if the chemical, an ingredient in certain plastics and in the lining of canned goods, is banned. About 7 billion pounds of BPA are produced each year. That explains how the industry could spend $2.2 million in the first half of 2008 lobbying to protect its profits. ...

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There's a fight going on in Washington that will ultimately affect how much you pay for gas.

Congress has demanded that the Bush Administration increase the fuel efficiency of the American automobile fleet, by requiring automakers to make more efficient cars and trucks.

Now that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is writing new rules into law, automakers are complaining that the 2011 model year requirements are too strict, while many car salesmen and environmental advocates are arguing just the opposite. They argue: Americans want to buy fuel-efficient cars, so carmakers will make money by selling them. (See this San Francisco Chronicle story for an overview of the fuel-efficiency fight.)

Car-makers don't want to abandon SUVs, those gas-guzzling suburban status symbols, because they are so profitable. But in that tried-and-true political tradition of bait-and-switch argumentation, they're instead making a bogus argument that they can't possibly meet the new fuel-economy standards because technology doesn't exist to make their fleets adequately fuel-efficient.

There's a simple solution, it seems ...

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The Environmental Protection Agency is at it again.

Career scientists with real knowledge about the state of the nation's environment, its effect on our health and what we might do about it are being sidelined in favor of political appointees.

The political news today is dominated by the political interference that dominated hiring at the Justice Department under former AG Alberto Gonzalez. But the Washington Post also uncovers another example of political interference at another federal agency. The EPA is no stranger to this type of political interference, as a pattern of intimidation against speaking out or discussing scientific conclusions has been well documented by the Union of Concerned Scientists and others.

According to the Post:

"A senior official in the Environmental Protection Agency's enforcement office has warned managers they should direct inquiries from reporters, congressional investigators and the agency's inspector general to designated officials rather than answering the questions themselves, according to an e-mail obtained by The Washington Post.

"The June 16 e-mail from Robbi Farrell, who heads the agency's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, instructs managers to remind employees "at your next staff meeting" that if they "are contacted directly by the IG's office or GAO requesting information of any kind . . . Please do not respond to questions or make any statements." Farrell issued the same instructions for media inquiries, saying rank-and-file agency officials should "forward the call or e-mail" to one of two press officers and copy her on the exchange."

Next to vetting immigration attorneys based on their views on abortion this may seem minor. But having been a reporter trying to get information from government agencies, I know how critical ...

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The latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau show a fact I find startling: More babies were born in 2007 than even during the height of the baby boom.

The figures, printed in USA Today, are preliminary, but show a 4.32 million-baby tally for 2007, more than the 4.30 million babies born in 1957.

Experts quoted in the story say it still only amounts to a "boomlet" because the trend in increased births is only growing at a single-digit pace. And the 2.1-child per woman average means that the U.S. isn't doing much more than replacing its population.

Still, 4.32 million new children in the country is a reminder that we have to provide for a new and growing generation. Daily, we're reminded about dwindling supplies of oil and even water, the consequences of a deteriorating climate, as extreme weather takes its toll, and record-high food prices.

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Sometimes the dots just don't get connected.

It used to be they might not get connected on the same page of the same newspaper, but now we're more apt to get our news delivered one headline at a lightning flash time. The disconnection can be overwhelming.

The headline today is President Bush Lifts Executive Ban on Offshore Drilling (in the Washington Post's formulation. The reasons cited: High gas prices, and politics. The rationale: Drill more oil domestically, and eventually you get cheaper gas at the pump, and highlight the issue now and you favor Republican John McCain over Democrat Barack Obama in November's presidential election.

The story's a wee bit bigger than that, though.

Start by connecting it to another, smaller story making some news today, Polar base evacuated as ice melts early, in the CNN formulation. Russian researchers abandoned their outpost on an Arctic ice floe more than a month ahead of schedule because the ice is melting so rapidly. Some have predicted the North Pole will go ice-free for the first time in history this summer, a year after the most extensive melt ever witnessed.

Drilling for oil means burning oil, means releasing carbon dioxide means more global warming means more ice melting. Consider those dots connected.

President Bush, while agreeing with world leaders last week that we ought to collectively cut our greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2050 (50% from what level? they didn't say), has otherwise kept his administration's hands off the switch and tied behind its back. The capstone of this achievement of stalling came last week, when the EPA announced it would continue to take public comment on the potential health impacts of global warming for a few more months, effectively ensuring that the next president would be the decider when it comes to carbon dioxide regulation.

It was 1990 (2 years after Congress was first warned about global warming, incidentally) that President Bush's father, George H.W. Bush imposed the executive branch ban on offshore drilling. Congress has its own ban, and seems content to keep it.

The decision whether or not to drill for oil off the coast of the United States is a question of long-term strategy, sort of ...

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A new Environmental Protection Agency report states that global warming is likely to increase unhealthy smog pollution that damages lungs.

At the same time, the EPA has determined that the value of a human life is worth about $900,000 less than it had estimated just five years earlier. That means, at $6.9 million per life, the cost-benefit analysis associated with new pollution regulations is likely to weigh the costs more heavily than the benefits.

The findings about smog, "quietly published," according to Reuters, suggest parts of the Mid-Atlantic, Northeast and lower Midwest could experience more concentrated ozone, and a longer duration of smog season, due to higher temperatures. That's no surprise, really, since ozone, the main component of smog, forms when pollution fro tailpipes and smokestacks reacts in heat and sunlight.

The findings about the declining value of a human life in the eyes of the EPA weren't publicized at all ...

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Start with a pristine mountain lake in the Alaskan wilderness. Add toxic waste. Kill all the fish. Wipe the lake off the map.

Bad for that lake, yes. But is it pollution?

The seemingly obvious answer to that question (umm, yes?) is at the heart of a case the Supreme Court has agreed to hear this winter.

In this corner, weighing in at 140,000 ounces of gold per year, is the Kensington mine, owned by Coeur Alaska (and the state of Alaska, which approved its plans to spoil the lake). And in the other corner ...

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