The classic definition of a gaffe is when a politician accidentally tells the truth, and specialists like Joe Biden can work wonders with the form. On Tuesday Barack Obama's running mate blew an easy question about coal, revealing volumes about liberal energy politics.

Working the rope line in Maumee, Ohio, the Senator was asked by an environmentalist why he and Mr. Obama support "clean coal." "We're not supporting clean coal," Mr. Biden responded. Then, riffing on China's breakneck construction of new coal plants, he continued, "No coal plants here in America. Build them, if they're going to build them, over there."

Sarah Palin on global warming: Humans might be partly to blame

Sarah Palin,  who has struck many as a refreshing break from politicians-as-usual, seemed to do Thursday what politicians usually do as their horizons expand -- moderate a previous position on a controversial subject.

By the same token, a close reading of what she said shows a lot of hedging on her hedge.

The subject was global warming, covered in Chapter 2 of ABC's multi-part interview with the Alaska governor whom John McCain cast as his running mate. Just a few weeks ago, in an interview with the conservative-leaning website Newsmax.com, Palin had this to say: "I'm not one ... who would attribute [global warming] to being man-made."

Late Sunday night, my wife and I drove from Sacramento, Calif., to Los Angeles. We figured that it would be wise to leave Sacramento in the early evening to avoid traffic. At 7 p.m., we climbed into the car and headed for Interstate 5, the major highway connecting Northern California and Southern California.

For the first five hours of the drive, things went as planned. The highway was relatively clear, and we sailed along happily at 80 mph.

Then we saw it. A sign. A large orange sign reading: Freeway Closed Ahead, 11 p.m.-4 a.m.

It was too late to get off the freeway; it was too late to turn around. There were no turnoffs, no exits, no restrooms. We were stuck an hour from Los Angeles, bumper-to-bumper, moving less than 1 mph. Literally. During the next three hours, we moved a grand total of 1.6 miles. Families were pulling onto the shoulders of the highway to catch some winks. One creative fellow actually attempted to drive off the freeway by cutting through some wire separating the freeway from an adjacent road. The cops immediately arrested him.

Senator Jeff Bingaman, Congressman Nick Rahall, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress who oppose producing more American oil are in a bind.

They know voters are hurting from high gas prices and overwhelmingly want the government to allow more American oil production. But they can’t side with the American people and risk upsetting their left-wing base. So they needed a way to make us think they support more drilling – while effectively preventing us from ever drilling a single new well.

They think they’ve found a solution: a proposed “use it or lose it” law on federal leases for energy exploration. Bingaman, Rahall and fellow drilling opponents accuse the oil industry of “sitting on” 68 million acres of “non-producing” leased land. They want to force energy companies to “use” this leased land within ten years – or lose all exploration and drilling rights.

Premier Gordon Campbell's ambitious targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions were in a sense drawn out of thin air.

Rather than any serious analysis of what it would take to get there, the goal of a 33 per cent reduction from 2007 levels by 2020 was based on his determination of what we need to achieve if we want to play an effective role in limiting the potentially harmful effects of climate change.

We got our first look at the changes required with the carbon tax and other measures introduced earlier this year.

Now the B.C. Climate Action Team has issued its recommendations to the provincial government that give a much clearer view of the magnitude of change that will be needed, along with interim targets that will have to be met by 2012 and 2016 to stay on track for the 33-per-cent reduction by 2020 reduction.

What is immediately clear is that the carbon tax now causing all the fuss at the gas pump is just the beginning. The panel recommends changes that will have much greater impact over time in the form of higher costs for any goods or services using energy and/or more provincial regulation of housing, transportation, community design and industry.