May I kiss you, CAIT?

The World Resources Institute's Climate Analysis Indicators Tool is really neat. It's a collection of data on carbon emissions, energy usage, social and health factors, and weather disasters, all organized by country or state. It's great for policy analysis, market research, and general eye-opening. And it's free!

Still in the beta phase, you can comment on CAIT on the discussion forum to suggest new views, more data, or better usability. And you'll actually get a response from the team working to put the info together.

There are more and more of these kinds of tools (several have come out based on Google Earth, for instance). Although data are only as intelligent as the mind interpreting them, this seems to be a case where having lots of information is really helpful.