The final presidential debate has come and gone, giving the candidates the opportunity to offer their views on energy and the environment. While McCain and Obama differ significantly on these issues, you wouldn’t have known it from what they said. They came across as the Frick and Frack of energy and the environment:

McCain: “I think we can, for all intents and purposes, eliminate our dependence on Middle Eastern oil and Venezuelan oil.”

Obama: “I think that in ten years, we can reduce our dependence so that we no longer have to import oil from the Middle East or Venezuela.”

McCain: “We have to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don’t like us very much.”

Obama: “(N)othing is more important than us no longer borrowing $700 billiion or more from China and sending it to Saudi Arabia.”

McCain: “And the point is that we can become energy independent and we will create millions of jobs – millions of jobs in America.”

Obama: “We can move in a direction not only of energy independence, but we can create 5 million new jobs all across America.”

Hey: maybe the same puppeteer was whispering in their ear? (You’ve gotta watch out for that Trilateral Commission!)

Both candidates also espoused a multi-faceted energy portfolio, including renewable energy technologies and more domestic oil production, complete with offshore drilling. McCain also spoke out for the sharply increased use of nuclear power, and although he got a bit snarky with Obama on the subject, Obama’s pro-nuclear as well. At different points they both said yes to clean coal technology, too.

Bottom line, both came across as centrist and inclusive in their approach to energy independence, and committed to using the transition to energy independence to drive what Obama called “the economy of the future.”

It was all very tame and safe. More intriguing, perhaps, is what they did not say. The moderator, Bob Schieffer, framed his question on this subject as being about “energy and climate.” (He said “climate control,” actually, making it sound as if he were asking about air conditioning; McCain corrected him with “climate change”.) Yet both candidates took a strictly geopolitical approach to the issue by focusing on how energy independence can end our reliance on bad actors and unreliable allies. There was nary a mention of record droughts or no more maple trees or, hey, Florida disappearing.

At massively mass-market events like these national debates, the fact is that talking seriously about the climate crisis is pretty much off limits. Yup: it’s a political third rail, right there alongside marijuana legalization. This is because you can’t come across as wanting to do away with oil and coal entirely if you want to win an election——and you can’t credibly talk about addressing climate change while touting increased oil and coal production.

The simple reality is that to address the climate crisis, we need to shift dramatically in the direction of renewable technologies. Obama alluded to this when he said, “We can create 5 million new jobs all across America, including in the heartland where we can retool some of these plants to make … highly fuel-efficient cars and also to make wind turbines and solar panels, the kinds of clean energy approaches that should be the driver of our economy for the next century.” But he only hinted at it.

At the close of a famous Sherlock Holmes story, Watson asks the detective how he solved the mystery. “It was the curious incident of the dog in the night-time,” Holmes says. Watson: “The dog did nothing in the night-time.” “That was the curious incident,” says Holmes.

Climate change was the dog in the night-time at last night’s debate.