The book Eastern Standard Time, from Cory Doctorow, the author of Down and Out in the Magic Kindgdom has arrived. http://www.craphound.com/est/. If his last novel is any indication, it should be worth a read.
How Global Warming May Cause the Next Ice Age...
A well written article about how the Gulf Stream may be shutting off. A minor result would be for europe to have the same weather as it's lattitudinal sisters: Alaska, Siberia, etc. A major result would be full blown, 100,000 year ice age. Once the Gulf Stream shuts down, climate change takes only 1 - 3 years. The fresh water from the melting ice caps may force this issue.
If the Great Conveyor Belt, which includes the Gulf Stream, were to stop flowing today, the result would be sudden and dramatic. Winter would set in for the eastern half of North America and all of Europe and Siberia, and never go away. Within three years, those regions would become uninhabitable and nearly two billion humans would starve, freeze to death, or have to relocate. Civilization as we know it probably couldn't withstand the impact of such a crushing blow.