Eminent physicist Freeman Dyson raised eyebrows a month ago when he told the New York Times Magazine that a little extra carbon dioxide—and global warming—might turn out to be good for the planet. So when we saw his name on an event around the corner from Scientific American's offices we figured we'd go hear his criticisms, dubbed "Climate Disasters, Safe Nukes and Other Myths," firsthand.

At the luncheon put on by the Cato Institute, when the talk turned to climate change Dyson started out sounding as if the whole thing was overblown, noting that the prospect of global warming is a problem that should be taken seriously. But he also said that no one should be alarmed about it yet.

France has established a $13.5 million (10 million euro) fund to compensate people who claimed they became sick as a result of its four decades of nuclear testing in Algeria and French Polynesia, government officials announced yesterday.

Some 150,000 people were "theoretically" exposed to radiation from the more than 200 tests conducted between 1960 and 1996, French Defense Minister Herve Morin told the French newspaper Le Figaro, according to the New York Times. Until now, France has denied the radiation released had caused a host of ills, including cancer, in residents in neighboring communities and workers who conducted the tests.

'Tis the season to get rid of nukes? In an effort to achieve world peace and lessen the growing threat of nuclear power, a nascent group including the likes of former President Jimmy Carter, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Bishop Desmond Tutu and Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa this week launched a campaign calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons.

The new organization, Global Zero, is planning a grassroots effort to spur world powers to rid the planet of nukes over the next 25 years. Meeting yesterday and Monday in Paris, 100 past and current world leaders signed a declaration imploring the U.S. and Russia to slash their nuclear arsenals and for a system to be created to verify that countries are complying with non-proliferation treaties, according to the Associated Press.

If you thought the Cold War was over—that long nuclear standoff that shaped the last five decades of the 20th century—think again. Following his American counterpart, and perhaps prompted by new tensions over the war in Georgia and the agreement between the U.S. and Poland to deploy a missile defense system there, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has announced plans to upgrade that country's "nuclear deterrent" by 2020.

It's part of a full upgrade for the Russian armed forces: more nuclear-powered subs, better bombs as well as their own "air and space defense network". "Star wars" has at last come to a galaxy not so far away.

The move prompted U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to boast that the U.S. possesses an "extremely capable, robust, broad and indeed varied nuclear deterrent," according to an interview with Reuters. That no doubt includes not only the hit-or-miss missile defense effort but also plans to build new nuclear weapons and the industrial complex that develops and fabricates them.

The "ultra-secure uranium warehouse of the future" in Oak Ridge, Tenn., is now built, if not quite ready for work. Part of Complex 2030—the Bush Administration's ambitious and little known plan to revamp the nation's aging infrastructure for building nuclear weapons—the warehouse will provide one location for the nation's supply of the highly enriched uranium (HEU) that makes for a powerful nuclear bomb.

Two years of testing remain before the HEU will actually show up, but the $549 million facility will replace "multiple" current storage locations scattered throughout the country. The HEU depot used 92,000 cubic yards of concrete, 5,800 tons of rebar and contains more than 1.5 million feet of wiring—and will ultimately be one of two locations used to store and process "thousands of containers of material," according to the National Nuclear Security Administration, the branch of the U.S. Department of Energy tasked with dealing with the nation's nuclear arsenal.