Joe Biden's green veepstakes, McCain houses' carbon footprint

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama announced Senator Joe Biden as his running mate, and this gets an environmental "OK" in many quarters.

The Daily Green reports that this potential vice president has a 83% lifetime score on environmental issues from the League of Conservation Voters. In fact, the League issued an endorsement of Joe Biden's nomination.

Grist points out that the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth Action, and Environment America all praise Obama's veep selection. Each of these conservation groups recognized Biden's long support of greenhouse-gas caps, his criticism of big oil, and push for fuel economy while working in the Senate.

The Republican presidential candidate isn't looking so green right now, unfortunately. Not only did John McCain forget how many homes he has, the eight properties he owns have a huge carbon footprint.

According to Alternet, most of those homes are pretty big. The size ranges from 2,100 to 7,000 square feet, not including his Arizona ranch with six separate houses on six acres. The average American home has a carbon footprint of 15 tons of CO2, and McCain's footprint is about 10 times that.