Global Warming

Firstly, welcome to 2010! Please wipe your feet.

Last year, nothing much happened. Specifically, representatives from all the countries of the earth met in Copenhagen, argued back and forth about Climate Change for ten days and then...nothing. An “agreement” that not everyone agreed on. Bravo!

And this was a shame as global warming seems like an important issue. I'm not too fussed on it myself but it bugs me how it has transformed the state of the weather into a valid topic of conversation. “So what's with this weather?” is supposed to be a last ditch attempt at communication, usually after the catastrophic revelation of one's political or sexual preferences. With it now taking the keynote position of after-dinner chitter-chatter, how can we possibly hope to shatter the silence imposed by “Actually, I find Nick Griffin in suspenders quite attractive,”?

I can deal with the floods, the frosts and the fires (coming this summer to a forest near you...) but I will not sit back and watch as the bedrock of polite conversation is eroded before our eyes. Accordingly then, I have devised a few measures which should put global warming back in its place, in the darkest recesses of late night chit-chat.

They say that an area of rainforest equal to Belgium is cut down every year. This obviously has a considerable impact on the environment. My suggestion is that we cut down Belgium instead. Surely no-one will miss it. Goodness knows the atmosphere doesn't need all that hot air from Brussels! However, this barely scratches the surface.

Cows are a much bigger problem than Belgium. Agriculture contributes about 14% of the world's greenhouse gases, which is nothing to be sniffed at. What's more, a significant portion of these emissions is Methane, which is twenty times more potent that CO2, and a single cow, through the most ignominious of farts and burps, will produce 300 litres of the stuff a day. It's clear that they're a bigger threat to the environment than even Jeremy Clarkson.

So what can we do? I originally planned a mass corking program but preliminary studies showed that the cows had a tendency to…explode. Doctors like to term this an “adverse event” and is something best avoided. I went back to the drawing board, but not before passing the cork cow-exploder idea on to the Ministry of Defence. (France won't know what hit it!)

There are more than 1.5 billion cows in the world. That's more than the entire population of China – and, for the record, China is massive! “But why do we need so many cows?” I pondered over a beefburger in the Union. “You eat them all,” my friend retorted, “If we were all vegetarians, we wouldn't need so many cows and could reduce their beefy burpy emissions.” “But cows are vegetarians – in fact, they only eat grass,” I argued, “and they're the problem!” But this got me thinking. If vegetarianism isn't the answer, maybe carnivorism is!

So, there are too many cows. Cows are vegetarians. If we could get cows to eat other cows, we would have fewer cows. Fewer cows are good! Q.E.D. But how to do it? I'm all for a bit of sirloin but cows, for reasons unfathomable, don't seem too inclined to take the bait. We need to make cows more palatable to other cows. Therefore, I propose that we paint the cows of Britain with MSG, to enhance and accentuate their natural flavour. It doesn't hurt either that MSG is the one thing more addictive than crack cocaine.

You may scoff but this plan is so mad, it's brilliant. There are 10 million cows in Britain, all of which need painting with MSG. To accomplish this, I will take command of everyone on the dole, thereby slashing unemployment figures. Now that only works out at around three cows per person, but all these cows will need re-painting after rainfall, and given how often it rains in this country, my employees will be kept busy for a long time to come. And 3 million workers will need 3 million buckets and brushes, not to mention the gallons of MSG required, and all the sundries beside. The purchase of these goods will revitalise the economy and stimulate growth faster than ProPlus snorted off a £5 note.

And that is how we fix global warming, unemployment and the economy in one fell swoop. Everybody's happy...except The Daily Mail, which, by definition, is never happy.