I just watched David Keith’s talk on geoengineering on TED.   He mentions at the end of the talk an interesting problem with global politics that is probably going to be more and more prevalent this century.  The problem is this: let’s say that the United States is against shooting sulfur into the atmosphere to cool [...]

On April 22, 2000.  A S.W.A.T. team working in conjunction with the INS and on orders from the Attorney General of the United States stormed into a home in Miami-Dade County and forcibly removed a child named Elian Gonzalez and returned him to his father in Cuba on June 28, 2000.  Elian’s mother had stolen him away [...]

Just in case you haven’t seen it elsewhere, Paul Krugman has a nifty graph of average global temperature since 1880.  

 
The graph can’t tell you what it means, but it can tell you that rising average temperatures is real.

From the CIA Factbook:
Top 10 Proven Oil Reserves by Nation:
World                 1,295,000,000,000           PCT of World Total
Saudi Arabia         266,800,000,000                 20.6%
Canada                 178,800,000,000                 13.8%
Iran                       132,500,000,000                10.2%
Iraq                        115,000,000,000                8.9%
Kuwait                   104,000,000,000                8.0%
United Arab Emirates 97,800,000,000             7.6%
Venezuela                  79,730,000,000             6.2%
Russia                        60,000,000,000            4.6%
Libya                          39,130,000,000            3.0%
If I’m not mistaken then, these ten countries possess almost 83% [...]