Rocket Science

The bloke who was clearly in charge of the Mars Beagle II debacle has finally been identified: Phil Chapman, the first Aussie astronaut.

Phil has since moved on to climate science:

All four agencies that track Earth's temperature (the Hadley Climate Research Unit in Britain, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, the Christy group at the University of Alabama, and Remote Sensing Systems Inc in California) report that it cooled by about 0.7C in 2007. This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record and it puts us back where we were in 1930. If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over.

0.7C in one year!!! F*#k me!! At that rate we'll be in an ice age before Kevin Rudd is out of power.

Well , yes, says Phil:

The next descent into an ice age is inevitable but may not happen for another 1000 years. On the other hand, it must be noted that the cooling in 2007 was even faster than in typical glacial transitions. If it continued for 20 years, the temperature would be 14C cooler in 2027.

And just to prove that denialsts aren't dirty rotton alarmists, Phil intones:

By then, most of the advanced nations would have ceased to exist, vanishing under the ice, and the rest of the world would be faced with a catastrophe beyond imagining.

Australia may escape total annihilation but would surely be overrun by millions of refugees. Once the glaciation starts, it will last 1000 centuries, an incomprehensible stretch of time.

Jebus, this stuff makes Monckton look semi-sane. And which national newpaper gave it star billing?

Why, the Oz, of course.