Ook! Ook!

The United Nations Environment Program (Unep) has just produced a report warning of human suffering on a massive scale due to the melting of sea and land ice everywhere. One need hardly bother reading further: anyone with half an ounce of imagination will know the score. And indeed, now that climate change is brutally upon us, it would seem that people worldwide are beginning to cotton on.

In Australia, John Howard has acknowledged the real causes of the 'once-in-a-thousand years' drought that is devastating his country. He is starting (far too late, of course) to instigate meaningful action. And the reason? Most Australians have made the link between global warming and their own suffering and they expect their politicians to help them. If Australian opinion polls are to be trusted, Howard is facing a real prospect of defeat in the forthcoming elections. Let's hope the world can be rid of the sour-faced little git. It will set an important precedent to be heeded in Washington and Ottawa: ignore global warming and you'll be booted out of office.

The American people are also getting real. Thanks in no small part to Al Gore, an overwhelming majority of the population now favours "immediate action" to confront global warming. In late April, a poll conducted by the New York Times and CBS showed that 90% of Democrats, 80% of Independents and even 60% of Republicans want action.

And yet the vast majority of Republicans in Congress continue to serve Exxon and others by refusing to support meaningful policies on a federal level. Meanwhile, the Bush administration is stuffed with half-witted cronies who pretend the crisis isn't happening. And the Chimp King himself is doing all he can to stall international efforts. Just wait and see what guff he comes up with at the G8 summit on Wednesday.

Forget Iraq. Disgraceful as that has been, it's for his stance on climate change that George W. Bush will be remembered as the WORST AMERICAN PRESIDENT EVER.