The first is a piece by the American News Project that explains how Big Oil has borrowed a page out Big Tobacco’s playbook — use junk science and slick marketing to stir doubt and uncertainty about real, credible scientific research.

The second clip is a Colbert Nation spoof on the greenwashing fed to the American public by the oil companies. As Stephen Colbert says, “A lot of people talk about loving the earth but how many of them actually penetrate it?”

The third is an ad titled, “Repower America,” created by Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection.  ABC refused to run the ad because it considered it too “controversial.” Why? Is it because ABC doesn’t want to offend its other clients — the ones who give the network millions to help Americans feel all warm and cozy about oil and coal? You can ask ABC yourself by clicking here.

McCain played it down the middle, saying all three issues were equally important and that he could work on all three at the same time. It was a safe, if meaningless, answer. Or rather, it was a non answer since the question was to rank priorities, not eliminate them.

Obama didn’t hesitate. He named energy his number one priority.

I think it said a lot about each man’s vision for the country and their leadership abilities. Obama realizes that if we don’t put a forward-looking energy strategy in place — one that emphasizes renewable energy and efficiency, while fostering new technologies — none of these other issues may matter. That’s how critical and all-encompassing energy is to our future.

Kudos to Obama for showing some political courage.

Ben Whitford @ Plenty says Obama’s message hit home:

In response, Obama blasted McCain’s lack of vision, criticizing his repeated votes against alternative fuels and driving home the point – which can’t be made often enough – that America simply doesn’t have the oil reserves to drill her way out of the current energy crisis. Instead, Obama promised a transformative JFK-style moon-shot, saying he’d make energy his administration’s top priority and pour resources into a broad-based energy platform encompassing everything from oil and nuclear to solar, wind, geothermal and energy efficiency.

Carl Pope @ The Sierra Club was also excited about Obama’s focus on a green economy:

For me, the most exciting moment in last night’s Presidential debate was when Obama showed that he gets this. When asked in what order he would undertake his major reforms, he put clean energy as priority #1. This is huge. It means that a green economy will be the driver of America’s economic recovery if Obama wins — and the focus group and polling results from last night suggest that the voters embrace this vision.

Jake Berliner @ NDN saw the Obama’s answer to the question as a historical moment:

This debate had a tremendous amount of discussion on energy, which, Americans have realized, is at the center of almost every major issue of the day, from getting the country out of a recession to limiting the power of an emboldened Russia. The fact that Obama has made it clear that energy is his first priority is an extremely welcome sign, and the strong focus on energy policy last night is a watershed moment in Presidential politics.

This strange scene on the National Mall is one in a series of street art installations that have popped up around Washington, D.C. in recent weeks. I haven’t actually seen one in person but I was on the Metro the morning one of these sculptures shut down a station because officials thought it might be a bomb or something sinister.

Uh, yeah.

The homeless polar bears are a collaboration between Greenpeace and artist Mark Jenkins to raise awareness about global warming. If only it was that easy for the polar bears to pack up their shopping carts and head south after the Artic ice melts away.

Instead, it looks like those bears are in some deep shit, with the ice literally melting out from underneath them. This post on the Bright Green Blog explains the bears’ dilemma. And this one on the DCist shows some of the local reaction to the appearance of the polar bear art.

There have been four sculptures in various locations, holding signs that say things like, “Victim of oil addiction,” and “Need more ice, not more oil.”

According to the Greenpeace Web site, Jenkins hoped that by putting the fate of the polar bear into a human context, his art could strike a chord with the public.

My intention with this project was to leverage my street installations to promote awareness about the issue of global warming and the plight of the polar bear. It was our shared goal that the public would develop empathy for the polar bear as they have for the homeless which we see as two connected issues.

I think the homeless polar bears are pretty effective, in a creepy sort of way. But the subtlety only goes so far.

The problem is that the public in general and the Bush administration in particular doesn’t have too much empathy for the average homeless person on the streets of the District, which gives you an idea of how motivated they’re going to be to save polar bears thousands of miles away.

Perhaps, if Jenkins had created some sculptures of homeless investment bankers pushing shopping carts . . .

Flickr photo by Polar Pic Pool

(Highlights from Al Gore’s speech on climate change last week in D.C.)

Isn’t it time we moved beyond the empty rhetoric of the Bush administration when it comes to solving global warming, humankind’s greatest challenge?  You know the George Bush I’m talking about, the one who tells the world that he’s committed to solving the climate crisis while offering no real solutions and refusing to agree to any binding treaties on emissions.

Meanwhile the Bush administration proposes the weakest fuel economy standard for vehicles possible, much to the delight of Detroit automakers. And it refuses to consider any type of reform that would reign in the oil barons, who are running free and unregulated on the back of every American motorist.

As we start sliding toward the end of the worst presidency in the history of the Union, it is becoming even more apparent that, while Bush offers earnest sound bites on global warming for public consumption, he and his lieutenants are working behind the scenes to undermine critical pollution controls.

The U.S. House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, chaired by Rep. Ed Markey (D. Mass.), just issued a report that lays out all of the dirty dealings of the Bush-Cheney White House.

“This is the dysfunctions and motivations of the Bush administration laid bare,” said Markey in a statement. “The fact that they can, with near unanimity, completely switch positions on global warming to please the oil industry is shocking, and yet disappointingly predictable.”

Of course, the White House responded in its usual fashion. Who us? Lapdogs of the oil industry? That’s Ridiculous.

I don’t really expect anything less from Bush at this point. He’s going to deny his culpability in bringing ruin to this country until the very end.

Find out how you can be part of the solution at the We Can Solve it Campaign.