One of the top (online) pundits in the country, The Atlantic‘s Marc Ambinder, thinks a McCain loss would make Sarah Palin the top contender for a Big-Oil-fueled presidential run in 2012. ThinkProgress’s uber-pundit Matthew Yglesias agrees.

Since the notion should be pretty scary to those concerned about clean energy and climate, and since Halloween is coming fast upon us, I thought I’d share with you Ambinder’s frightful thinking:

There’s a suspicion in some McCain loyalist precincts that Gov. Sarah Palin is beginning to play the Republican base against John McCain — McCain won’t let her campaign in Michigan…McCain won’t let her bring up Jeremiah Wright… McCain doesn’t like her terrorist pal talks….Think ahead to 2010…2011…2012.

Palin is ambitious. Very ambitious.

And if she wants the job, she’s easily the frontrunner to become THE voice of the angry Right in the Wilderness.

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Glad to see the League of Conservation Voters picked up on the New Hampshire town hall video I have been pushing here. For more background, see “The greenwasher from Arizona has a record as dirty as the denier from Oklahoma.”

The Oldest Utah newspaper understands “climate change is now being blamed for an increased population of bark beetles.” The journal Nature published an article just this April, “Mountain pine beetle and forest carbon feedback to climate change.” The Canadian media knows, “Climate-Driven Pest Devours Canada’s Forests.”

Yet NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams manages to do an entire story devoted to the explosion of the tiny forest-destroying pest in Colorado without ever mentioning the crucial climate change connection:

If people wonder why the American public doesn’t understand that climate change is hitting this country hard right now — making droughts longer and stronger, spreading pests, destroying forests, driving the worst wildfire seasons in recorded history — one need look no further than the traditional media.

NBC offers no explanation for what has happened beyond the statement that “The beetles, about the size of a grain of rice, have always been here, but their population has exploded as they feed off the old drought-weakened trees.” But haven’t we always had droughts? What is different now, NBC?

You know your network is failing its viewers when it won’t even offer an explanation that is so widely understood that even conservative senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) presented it in a May 2006 speech on climate change:

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A new report from the Center for American Progress, “The Clean and Clear Winners,” finds:

Just released data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration on carbon dioxide emissions per state in 2005 shows that renewable energy initiatives do pay off. The 10 cleanest states based on per capita emissions–in order, the District of Columbia, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, California, Idaho, New York, Oregon, Massachusetts, and Washington–have aggressive renewable energy and/or efficiency programs.

Click here for an interactive map to see how much carbon dioxide the average citizen in each state releases into the atmosphere each year.