We have come to a point in the election season where the courage of the candidates and the intelligence of the voters are being severely tested. So far, the candidates are flunking. The public’s grade is pending.

The test is about oil and national security.

Who knew that the US is currently exporting 1.8 million barrels of oil a day?

To make sure everybody does, Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, sent a public letter to President Bush, asking him to "keep our oil at home."

The letter didn't specify how, but it didn't miss the opportunity to take a shot at the GOP plan to open up protected offshore waters to oil drilling.

.....at the current export rate, by the time the first barrel of oil could be produced from increased offshore drilling, America would have already exported the equivalent of nearly 40 percent of the oil that is projected to lie beneath protected areas offshore.

It was no coincidence that Markey's letter was released just as John McCain paid a visit to an offshore rig off the coast of Louisiana -- in order to highlight his support for increased domestic offshore drilling.

As the public battle over access to oil in protected US waters continues, Jad Mouawad in the New York Times explains why the stakes have gotten so high: it turns out the major oil companies, desperate for new sources of supply, have almost nowhere else to turn.

And after reading this story on Think Progress, it will also become clear why a McCain election victory would deliver what the oil companies want more than anything else: a clear path to an endless fossil future.

An old friend of mine used to say that at a certain stage in political campaigns, dead cats start flying through the air.  I’ve never understood what he meant by that, but I think the cat-flinging has begun.

Both candidates are doing their share, but one exchange deserves special analysis: John McCain’s attack against Barack Obama’s comment about tire gauges. In one of his recent energy speeches, Obama made the point that acts of conservation by individual Americans can have an impact on rising oil prices. He used tire pressure maintenance as an example.

A new study called "The Contribution of Chinese Exports to Climate Change" just published in the journal Energy Policy (firewalled) delivers some sobering news.

The recent rapid growth of greenhouse gas emissions in China is largely the result of industrial production of cheap exports for foreign markets. At the same time, households in China were responsible for a decreasing share of the nation's soaring emissions.

In other words, all that shopping at Wal Mart has more to do with China's soaring carbon footprint than the lifestyle of the average Chinese person. Consumption in the developed world -- with the US accounting for the largest share -- is driving both the growth in China's GDP and its emissions at the same explosive rate.

Here are the numbers in the study:

You've heard about Al Gore's challenge to remodel the U.S. electrical industry in 10 years to eliminate all CO2 emissions. Some commentators say the job is too big, some say it isn't, but everyone, including Al, agrees it's a big, big job.

But exactly how big? What are we up against here? How much new wind, solar, geothermal power do we need to replace the CO2 producing plants? What else might be needed to make such a system work?