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To be serious I don't belive in banning SUV's, I belive by pumping out GHG we are using up finite "environmental services". This problem and this one are intertwined, both need unprecedented international cooperation and long range planning, sadly mankind seem to be distracted by bombs and bullets.

"Gone are the days of peaceful protests."

Exactly what day(s) are we talking about here? The days when people bashed "nigger lovers", the day MLK was shot, the days spooks followed John Lennon around or something more recent in the days "Cat Stevens" is considered a terrorist sympathiser. I have picked US events since most will recognise them. From what I can remember and what I read, western governments in general got a whole lot more peacefull when crowds started chanting "the whole world is watching" toward the end of the 60's. But that development and mobile comms is about all that has changed about "protesting" since WW2.

There were "troublemakers" back then, just as there always has been. It is also not unknown for "troublemakers" to be sponsered by governments so as to "discredit groups" they see as a threat, "make cause" for increased powers or even just to "flush out the troublemakers" because they are feeling parinoid. I'm not only talking about third world dictatorships, western governments have a poor records of abstaining from these tatics and I see no reason why they would suddenly stop when global parinoia has gone through the roof.

What also has me baffled is why you have decided MTV are the "troublemakers", 1/4 million people went to the G8 protest with very reasonable demands. Like it or not, 1/4 million people is a large (unarmed and in places drunk) army who were better behaved than any regular unifomed army that decides to "demand" something. Just how long they would stay peacefull when a UAV swoops, (or drops), out of the sky and into the crowd is debateable.

I do agree mobile comms are being used in sophisticated ways to manipulate crowds via disinformation and coordinate the ensuing riots. I have no idea who is responsible or how UAV's could possibly help ease tension in an already angry mob.

Why Wikipedia Must Jettison Its Anti-Elitism.

Too many experts are turned away by the teeming, uninformed Wikipedians who tear down useful contributions under the mistaken notions of "balance" or "being informative." Look at Panera Bread; 25% of the article is unequivocal information, the other 75% are advertisement and random facts. It also doesn't use proper paragraphs, and the entire article lacks structure. This is a typical Wikipedia article, but you see many of the same flaws in "Featured" articles. People don't know what to write in this supposed "encyclopedia," nor how.

And yes, Africans probably care more about staying alive than reading Wikipedia. To anyone considering donating to Wikipedia: your money would be better spent in the hands of an AIDS-related charity or a broad-action organization. Believe it or not, people can still starve to death even if they can look up Calculus in Wikipedia.

Those so poor they can afford a $500 PC

Oh, my heart bleeds.

Do USAians actually understand what poverty means? A huge number (I don't have the figures to hand) earn less than USD10 per month.

In fact, the Make Poverty History have a poster (which unfortunately does not appear to be online) quoting a statistic that a London (UK) parking meter earns more in an hour than something like 75% of the world's population earns in a month.

Please, the http://www.makepovertyhistory.org/ campaign, put this stuff up on the web, not just on dead trees!

We do realise that the G8 summit is upon us, and that huge international protests against international poverty are due to coincide with it? ... Don't we?

Or is this just some sheltered young white well-to-do middle-class ... oh, just remembered where I am.
Go, Dubya!

Those so poor they can afford a $500 PC

Oh, my heart bleeds.

Do USAians actually understand what poverty means? A huge number (I don't have the figures to hand) earn less than USD10 per month.

In fact, the Make Poverty History have a poster (which unfortunately does not appear to be online) quoting a statistic that a London (UK) parking meter earns more in an hour than something like 75% of the world's population earns in a month.

Please, the http://www.makepovertyhistory.org/ campaign, put this stuff up on the web, not just on dead trees!

We do realise that the G8 summit is upon us, and that huge international protests against international poverty are due to coincide with it? ... Don't we?

Or is this just some sheltered young white well-to-do middle-class ... oh, just remembered where I am.
Go, Dubya!

Hmmmm, somewhat agreed, but these things are not always binary, we can't say that if the US didn't fund a space program, they would give the world clean drinking water (and both these problems are equally hard IMHO).

So lets applaud what each country does well and try to force change in what we do badly. Both the parent poster and I critisized the UK, and rightly so, but this story from the BBC gives me some hope and pride in my country.

So lets take the good points where we find them and campaign to change those parts we don't (and you could do worst than starting here.)

Briefish synopsis:

Recent measurements show that one of the three mechanisms believed to drive the Gulf Stream is decreasing more than expected. The result could be that the Gulf Stream turns off, meaning that warm currents from the equator are no longer brought to Northern Europe and North East America. This may happen in a decade, which might decrease our temperature by 5-8 degrees. Or it might happen over the next couple of centuries, which might actually be beneficial because it could counteract global warming. Or it might not happen at all, since no-one can actually predict this stuff.

Seems to me that we'd be better off not worrying about it. And no, I'm not a denier of global warming, I don't drive a SUV. Actually, I model fluid flow for a living, albeit on much smaller scales than oceanographic, and the kind of uncertainty involved in this almost makes it non-science. There are much more important issues than this to get worked up about - for example watch the videos on this site, and then try to tell me you care more about the Gulf Stream. Note that I think it's great this research is ongoing, but until they actually have something to report, the media should look into things that we actually know about, such as [insert your favourite here].