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Anorak News | Water, Water Everywhere

Water, Water Everywhere

by | 24th, January 2005

‘HOW do you follow Prince Andrew as he jets off to the nineteenth hole? Why, if you’re Margaret Beckett, the Environment Secretary, in a jet of your own, naturally.

”Maggie, Maggie, Maggie….”

While the Independent leads with the headline ”Countdown To Global Catastrophe” – a new report called Meeting The Climate Challenge says the ”point of no return” may be reached in just ten years – the Telegraph tries to catch up with La Beckett.

And it learns that in the last financial year, she made 25 foreign trips at a cost of £119,279 – more than any other top politico, aside from Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

And more than 70% of these trips involved the use of charter flights or RAF planes instead of cheaper schedule flights or her beloved caravans.

As with Andrew, we believe it is only fair that Beckett is able to defend her spending pattern.

But aside from the hum from the engines of her ozone-depleting plane flying overhead, we hear nothing.

Which leaves us free to return to the Indy’s front-page story, and thereon look at the aforementioned report produced by a task force of academics, senior politicians and business leaders from around the globe.

And the news is that what this team calls ”runaway” global warming will occur when the average world temperature increases by another degree.

At that point, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will rise above the 400 parts per million by volume (ppm) threshold (it currently stands at 379ppm).

This will lead to the loss of the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, the end of the Gulf Stream ocean current and cause many of the best landing strips and golf courses to be waterlogged…’



Posted: 24th, January 2005 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink