Here's a scary map (which you can click to enlarge):

The Bangor Daily News has the story:

A group of environmental advocates believe they have evidence that oil giant ExxonMobil — and perhaps even [Maine] Gov. Paul LePage [R] — are backing a plan to push controversial tar sands oil through an aging pipeline across Maine. ...

Representatives of the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environment Maine, the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Council of Maine, among others, told reporters Wednesday morning during a news conference in Portland that research into the corporate parentage of the Portland Pipe Line Corp. shows a direct line to ExxonMobil, a company the environmentalists described as a major player in the field of Canadian tar sands oil extraction.

Six Western states could soon see big, new solar-power projects on public land, thanks to a plan finalized Friday by the Interior Department. The Hill reports:

The Interior Department set aside about 285,000 acres for commercial-scale solar in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. The federal government will offer incentives for development, help facilitate access to existing or planned electric infrastructure and ease the permitting process in the 17 zones. ...

If fully utilized, Interior predicts the zones could produce 23,700 megawatts of solar energy, enough to power 7 million homes.

Interior tried to be sensitive to conservation issues in developing the plan, as AP explains:

[T]he chosen sites have fewer of the environmental concerns — such as endangered desert tortoise habitat — that have plagued other projects.

Tax that rig.

Here's something that could only happen in Scandinavia. The Guardian reports:

Norway is to double carbon tax on its North Sea oil industry and set up a £1bn [$1.6 billion] fund to help combat the damaging impacts of climate change in the developing world. ... one of the most radical climate programmes yet by an oil-producing nation ...

Norway will also plough an extra £1bn into its funds for climate change mitigation, renewable energy, food security in developing countries and conversion to low-carbon energy sources, Environmental Finance reported.

It will step up spending on new projects to combat deforestation in developing countries ...

With demand for coal in the U.S. at a new low (thanks to fracking and natural gas), coal producers are anxious to ship their stocks abroad. Anti-coal activists, in turn, are anxious to stop the construction of coal export terminals, especially in the Pacific Northwest.

Now those anti-coal activists have some forceful new friends, as The New York Times reports:

Many environmental groups and green-minded politicians in the Pacific Northwest are already on record as opposing a wave of export terminals proposed from [the northwest coast of Washington] to the south-central coast of Oregon, aiming to ship coal to Asia. But in recent weeks, Indian tribes have been linking arms as well, citing possible injury to fishing rights and religious and sacred sites if the coal should spill or the dust from its trains and barges should waft too thick.

Thursday's feisty vice presidential debate included one exchange on energy, specifically clean-energy stimulus funding -- and that one exchange included a number of distortions and lies, courtesy of one Congressman Paul Ryan.

The back-and-forth was largely about Solyndra, though the company's name was never mentioned. Ryan tried to paint the Energy Department's stimulus-funded loan program for cleantech companies as a cesspool of corruption and waste: "green pork" and "crony capitalism and corporate welfare." Joe Biden defended the stimulus spending -- as have so many outside observers -- and pointed out that Ryan eagerly sought some of that "green pork" for his own Wisconsin district.

Let's check out some quotes and some fact-checking:

Ryan: "Look at just the $90 billion in stimulus. ... $90 billion in green pork to campaign contributors and special interest groups."

Fact-check: False.

Here's what AP has to say:

Not quite as cheap as it used to be.

A trade skirmish over solar panels has pitted the U.S. against China. And pitted one wing of the American solar industry against another. And pitted one presidential candidate against another. And here you thought tariffs were boring!

Here's the latest news from The New York Times:

The Commerce Department issued its final ruling Wednesday in a long-simmering trade dispute with China, imposing tariffs ranging from about 34 percent to nearly 47 percent on most manufacturers of solar panels and cells imported from the country.

For most of the Chinese manufacturers, the penalties are somewhat higher than those announced by the Obama administration earlier this year, when the government determined that Chinese companies were benefiting from unfair government subsidies and were selling their products below the cost of production, a practice known as dumping ...

Wholesale prices [for solar panels] have declined by nearly three-quarters since 2008 as Chinese companies expanded capacity and production much faster than the growth in worldwide demand. ...

About a dozen panel makers in the United States, as well as a similar number in Europe, have gone bankrupt or closed factories since the start of last year.

Think: Solyndra.

All around the country this election season, we've got Democrats who don't want to talk about climate change and Republicans who don't even acknowledge that climate change is real.

But in the Washington state governor's race, it's a whole different ballgame. The Democrat, Jay Inslee, is a longtime, outspoken crusader for climate action and clean energy. The Republican, Rob McKenna, is one of a vanishing breed of Republicans who not only acknowledge that climate change is happening but support government action to fight it.

And they're locked in one of the most competitive gubernatorial races of the year, vying to replace retiring Democrat Chris Gregoire.

Jay Inslee

Greens are positively swooning for Inslee. During more than a decade in the U.S. House representing areas north and west of Seattle, he pushed aggressively for climate legislation, environmental protections, federal support for cleantech, and a wholesale shift to a green economy. For Inslee, clean energy is not just another issue; it's his motivating passion. He coauthored a book on the subject in 2007: Apollo's Fire: Igniting America's Clean Energy Economy. He cofounded the House Sustainable Energy Caucus. He's written posts here at Grist calling for clean air, international climate action, and passage of his New Apollo Energy Act.

Nader, back at the microphones again. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer.)

Ralph Nader is back in the news, keeping up that reputation as a perennial gadfly. Over the last few days, the former Green Party presidential candidate and consumer advocate has attacked President Obama for being weak on climate, weak on the Keystone XL pipeline, and, oh, a war criminal to boot.

In an interview with Politico, Nader laid into Obama for his brief mention of climate change during his recent convention address:

He has been ignoring even talking about climate change, and in his speech in Charlotte, he said, 'climate change is not a hoax.' Can you imagine a more defensive assertion of something that is threatening with droughts and famines and invasive species all over the world?

Nader says there's a clear reason why Obama hasn't been tying energy issues to climate change:

Obama: Climate change is not a hoax and not a joke. (Photo by Reuters / Eric Thayer.)

President Obama surprised and delighted climate activists by making a defense of climate action in his big convention speech on Thursday night.

... my plan will continue to reduce the carbon pollution that is heating our planet -- because climate change is not a hoax. More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke. They are a threat to our children’s future. And in this election, you can do something about it.

Take that, Mitt Romney!

Obama also made a strong case for clean energy and efficiency:

You can choose the path where we control more of our own energy. After thirty years of inaction, we raised fuel standards so that by the middle of the next decade, cars and trucks will go twice as far on a gallon of gas. We’ve doubled our use of renewable energy, and thousands of Americans have jobs today building wind turbines and long-lasting batteries. …

We’re offering a better path -- a future where we keep investing in wind and solar ...; where farmers and scientists harness new biofuels to power our cars and trucks; where construction workers build homes and factories that waste less energy.

He still stuck to the "all-of-the-above" approach, lauding domestic fossil-fuel production:

Bill Clinton tells it. (Photo by Jason Reed / Reuters.)

In a barn burner of a speech Wednesday night, Bill Clinton became the first big-timer at the Democratic convention to make reference to climate change.

Here's what he said on global warming and energy, at least according to a transcript distributed ahead of time. (Clinton did a whole lot of ad-libbing -- his prepared remarks amounted to 3,136 words, while his delivered remarks added up to a whopping 5,895 -- but he pretty much stuck to the book on this part.)

The agreement the [Obama] administration made with management, labor and environmental groups to double car mileage over the next few years is [a] good deal: it will cut your gas bill in half, make us more energy independent, cut greenhouse gas emissions, and add another 500,000 good jobs.

President Obama’s “all of the above” energy plan is helping too -- the boom in oil and gas production combined with greater energy efficiency has driven oil imports to a near-20-year low and natural-gas production to an all-time high.  Renewable energy production has also doubled.

Clinton also whacked the Romney/Ryan budget as bogus and unfair, warning that it would likely chop funding for environmental protection, among many other things. And he delivered some killer lines along the way: