We are standing at the threshold of a revolution in the world energy economy. Or, so we might hope after reading this week’s Economist.

The tell-tale signs of that revolution are documented in a 14-page special section on “The Future of Energy.”

Take a look at offshore oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico and you'll see a curious sight: wind turbines on the platforms, hundreds of them. The one in the picture is on a Chevron rig.

Chevron and other oil companies are using the power from the micro-generating turbines to run the nerve center of oil rig operations - called SCADA in industry jargon. Oil rig SCADA systems used to run off of inefficient thermal electric generators, which burned oil and then converted the heat to electricity. No more.

He's way too unpopular to consider for the second slot on the McCain ticket, but is a cabinet post for Dick Cheney as energy czar out of the question if the Republicans prevail in November?

After the roll out last week of McCain's drill-drill-drill energy policy, it's pretty likely. Backed by the full might of the Republican message machine, McCain's energy proposals were lifted wholesale out of the Dick Cheney energy strategy that has guided US policy since 2001.

It's the policy that was developed by National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG), a group created by President Bush two weeks after he first took office and placed under Cheney's direction, whose secret deliberations have been a source of controversy ever since.

It's the policy that found expression in the Energy Act of 2005, passed by Congress. And it's the policy described concisely on the web site of the Strategic Unconventional Fuels Task Force, a group within the Department of Energy, created by the Energy Act of 2005.

In its official documents, The Task Force spells out what the fossil future is supposed to look like according to the energy security gospel of Dick Cheney. At the top of the list of things needed to develop energy sources for the future? Development of the oil shale deposits in the American West.

That's exactly what McCain proposed last week.

So if elected, why wouldn't he provide a cabinet appointment to the dark visionary and architect of America's endless fossil future?

Cheney ain't the decider, but he's certainly the go-to guy.

Twenty years ago today, Dr. James Hansen warned Congress about global warming. To mark the occasion, he was before Congress again today, and at the National Press Club. He has posted the text of his presentation here, and accompanying powerpoint slides here.

Here are some excerpts from "Global Warming Twenty Years Later: Tipping Points Near."

My presentation today is exactly 20 years after my 23 June 1988 testimony to Congress, which alerted the public that global warming was underway. There are striking similarities between then and now, but one big difference.

Again a wide gap has developed between what is understood about global warming by the relevant scientific community and what is known by policymakers and the public. Now, as then, frank assessment of scientific data yields conclusions that are shocking to the body politic. Now, as then, I can assert that these conclusions have a certainty exceeding 99 percent.

The difference is that now we have used up all slack in the schedule for actions needed to defuse the global warming time bomb. The next President and Congress must define a course next year in which the United States exerts leadership commensurate with our responsibility for the present dangerous situation.

Otherwise it will become impractical to constrain atmospheric carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas produced in burning fossil fuels, to a level that prevents the climate system from passing tipping points that lead to disastrous climate changes that spiral dynamically out of humanity’s control.

Changes needed to preserve creation, the planet on which civilization developed, are clear. But the changes have been blocked by special interests, focused on short-term profits, who hold sway in Washington and other capitals. I argue that a path yielding energy independence and a healthier environment is, barely, till possible. It requires a transformative change of direction in Washington in the next year......

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Three years ago, who would have ever predicted that George Pataki would have climate talking points for presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain? Nobody, not even Nostradamus.

But the very next day after McCain unveiled his drill-drill-drill energy policy in Houston and called for the lifting of the longstanding ban on drilling for oil in American coastal waters, Pataki spoke in New York at a Green Business Summit sponsored by the law firm where he now works, Chadbourne and Parke.

George, you coulda been a contender. Here are some of his words -- read 'em and weep.