Just how is Jerusalem above sea level?

It seems that global warming has resolved a long standing territorial dispute between Bangladesh and India. Perhaps this was Captain Codpiece's cunning plan for peace in the Middle East. Crank up your SUVs!

But what does Gaia think?

Environmentalist and futurist James Lovelock thinks that humanity is too stupid to do anything to prevent climate change in the coming decades. And with folks like these running wild it's hard to come up with a rebutal.

Perhaps it is time to consider whether we are an evolutionary dead end....

A word of advice in a warming world

If you don't already live on a hill (I do!) you might want to think about moving as scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison think that sea level rises might more than twice what the IPCC predicts. Good thing it's all in own minds, eh?

No pole is an island

In any case the North Pole didn't use to be; but it is now. Even if you don't believe that humans are having a major impact on global climate change (they are!) I assume that you find this a worrying trend. Right?

Would you like ice with that?

It is a bloody good thing that global warming is myth cooked up by Al Gore to enable him to win an undeserved Oscar AND an undeserved Nobel Prize because if it were not this would be most worrisome.

It's hot out there!!!

And that includes Reykjavik!

Just when you thought it was safe to get back in the water...

...comes the attack of the killer electric marbled sting rays, courtesy of non-existent global warming. So much for going for a swim in West Sussex!

Your tax dollars not at work

America's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is cutting back on climate research to save fuel costs. That's some clever thinking. They need about $1.7 million to keep up with rising fuel costs. That's about what 7 minutes of the war in Iraq costs.

It's not such a problem if you live on a hill...

...but there are literally billions of people world wide, living in low lying areas, who are at great risk from climate change and rising sea levels. The residents of the Oceanic nation Kiribati are perhaps foremost amongst them. The country's president, Anote Tong, believes that his nation will soon disappear and has asked for assistance in evacuation and resettlement. I have no doubt that American immigration will treat them fairly after deciding that they are economic refugees who are just using the fact that their country now longer exists to gain access to the wide range of minimum wage jobs available in America's service industry.

A tale of two cities

Yesterday in Berlin (the real one in Germany not the one in New Jersey) the Bundestag passed a climate change law targeting a 40% reduction in CO2 emissions from 1990 levels by 2020. Meanwhile in Washington DC Senators didn't even get a chance to discuss a woefully inadequate climate change bill because Republicans didn't want to. Somehow Senators such as Boxer (D - CA) and Lieberman (Republi-dent - CT) tried to spin this, unsuccessfully I think, as a victory.

Yes - he really did say this!

Congress should "be very careful about running up enormous costs for future generations of Americans" according to Captain Codpiece. Somehow this sage advice only seems to apply to climate change legislation and not to an illegal invasion of a sovereign, if unsavoury, nation nor to unaffordable tax cuts for the extremely wealthy at the expense of the poor and middle class.

He really is a first class wanker.

Is it 2004 already?

Captain Codpiece's evil minions have finally got around to issuing a comprehensive assessment of the impact of global warming on the US and it ain't good news folks. Unsurprisingly the report was only issued, four years after it was due, after a court order forcing them to do so. Consistency is their hallmark.

"Save the planet? Sure. Why not?...

...What the hell do you mean it's going to cost me?" The great spirit of American sacrifice for the greater good lives on. We are doomed, aren't we?

Why we must do something about global climate change

If we do nothing the British wine industry may be destroyed!

So this is the thanks we get

The United States bends over backwards for Israel. We stand steadfastly by their side, even when they are in the wrong, and fund a significant portion of their "defence" spending. So why did the Israeli government allow an Israeli foundation to give a $1 million environment prize to Al Gore for warning us about something that isn't happening?

"Science? We don't need no stinking science!"

In case you had any doubt decisions related to the environment and climate in Captain Codpiece imperial realm are made based on political considerations not science. Surprised? Anyone?

Britain (fails to) lead the way

The British Treasury is insisting that aid to poor countries to deal with the effects of climate change (caused by us) be in the form of loans that have to be repaid with interest. What happened to the kinder, gentler Gordo?

Meanwhile back in the reality based community...

...global warming isn't coming, it's already here. But nothing to worry about I'm sure Captain Codpiece doesn't read Nature so he can pretend, for another eight months, that nothing is happening!

Do you want the good news or the bad news?

The good news is that the US government has finally, in a long over due decision, decided that the polar bear is "threatened" but not "endangered".

The bad news is that the Department of the Interior has carefully worded the finding to ensure that off shore oil and gas drilling in areas of the bears' habitat is not effected, at least until the oil and gas runs out, and is taking steps to prevent the regulation of CO2 and other greenhouses gases because they "don't have the science to do that".

As we blather on...

...the climate news continues to get worse and worse. The US government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports the atmospheric CO2 levels now stand at 387 parts per million and indications are that the planet's nature defenses are losing the ability absorb carbon. If true this would mean that current models, that assume around half of emissions are absorbed by the oceans and plant life, are too optimistic and man made emissions would have to be cut even further.

Whilst all of this goes on we have had the Captain Codpiece presidency, eight years in which the world's worst offender, the United States, did sod all to address their profligate consumption. That will be the real Bush legacy; the lost years.