We should be scared stiff

Visionary Vladimir Putin is arming to the teeth to keep Stanford Nobel laureates from crashing the paradise that is Siberia

hillarity ensues

In his book The Weather Makers, Tim Flannery puts aside his essential optimism for long enough to write: "If humans pursue a business-as-usual course for the first half of this century, I believe the collapse of civilisation due to climate change becomes inevitable. - 'We should be scared stiff'' "I think people forget that the whole world is going to be affected," he goes on. "Climate change will affect China and the US." Indeed, Lovelock envisages that the Chinese people will press to live in a newly lush Siberia before the century is out. "No wonder Putin is arming like mad. In fact, Putin is one of the more far-sighted of global leaders." In the US, even now, distinguished academics are contemplating moving north, Lovelock says. "I gave a talk at Stanford [the Californian Ivy League university] a few months ago. Professors, including Nobel prize winners, were coming up to me asking where in Canada they should buy real estate because they believed me when I said much of the US will be uninhabitable."