Climate

The problem with articles on climate change is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find unbiased research these days. Of course everything is biased in some way, it's almost inevitable that scientist will have something in mind that they are hoping to prove or disprove and that their own thoughts/perceptions/expectations will in some way effect the way that they steer their research and the way that they interpret the results. However, what is also increasingly common is that research is no longer funded by universities or governments simply because it's the thing to do (certainly it is in CivIII if you want to 'keep up with the Joneses' so to speak) but has become increasingly commercialized and increasingly funded by large corporations. It wouldn't be so bad if Harry's Healthy Teddy Bear Corp. was funding research on global warming, so long as they weren't a shell company being used as a front by someone else and were indeed doing it out of the goodness of their heart. However, when one of the giant oil companies is doing it and the research comes out saying that everything is fine one starts to wonder.... The same way that a lot of GE research has seemed to be funded by one side or the other by 'interested' parties. It's interesting to keep track of new developments in the global warming debate but ever so hard to keep track of funding sources and just what biases may or may not have influenced their work.
On the other hand, good to hear that California is forgng ahead and introducing laws to restrict emissions despite America's national lack of interest in the Kyoto agreement.