A two-man, two-woman, one-Great Dane team of young Americans has exposed the belief that the Earth’s climate is growing warmer as a result of man-made emissions of greenhouse gases, thus potentially leading to widespread famine and ecological disaster, as the work of a scheming fraudster.
Team leader Fred explained that they were passing through Britain in their camper van when a recent copy of the Daily Express alerted them to a mystery. Despite increasing talk about global warming, this winter and last have actually been very cold.
‘We suspected there might be something odd going on, so we split into two teams,’ Fred told reporters. ‘Me, Daphne and Velma looked in the basement at the Met Office, while Shaggy and Scooby were sent to explore the newsroom of a pro-Communist newspaper called The Independent.’
Shaggy and Scooby then blundered into a nearby deserted mansion called The Hare & Hounds and ate the entire lunch set out for the Science & Policy editorial team. They were chased out by an angry mob of journalists waving expense claim forms.
‘Then a tall figure covered in white appeared and Scooby went ‘G-g-g-ghost!’ and started running around madly on the spot,’ added Fred. ‘We heard the commotion and chased the ghost through the climate laboratories of the University of London.’
Eventually, the ‘ghost’ was cornered and unmasked. To the team’s surprise, it was not their first suspect, notorious left-wing Prime Minister David Cameron, but Charlie, the caretaker at the Institute of Policy Studies. ‘Charlie’ was then identified as former US vice-president Al Gore.
‘It’s true,’ said Gore at a federal penitentiary. ‘I whipped up a fictitious scare so that the eco-techcnology companies I own could make me a fortune and good honest American multinationals could be put out of business. And I’d’ve gotten away with too, it if it hadn’t been for those pesky, meddling kids.’
All across the world, people paused momentarily from buying new 4x4s to laugh heartily as Fred concluded: ‘The only ‘inconvenient truth’ Al’s going to be facing from now on is being the new bitch for all the 20-stone serial killers in the prison showers!’
[hat tip to various contributors to recent threads]
