5:00 PM -- Montgomery Burns has taken charge of U.S. environmental policy.

The U.N. today released the first part of its latest climate change study, as The New York Times reports:

The report released here represented the fourth assessment since 1990 by the group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations, of the causes and consequences of climate change. But for the first time the group asserted with near certainty — more than 90 percent confidence — that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases from human activities were the main drivers of warming since 1950.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported earlier this week on the U.S. response to the report. Among the expected whining and equivocation was the following bizarre recommendation:

THE US wants the world's scientists to develop technology to block sunlight as a last-ditch way to halt global warming.

It says research into techniques such as giant mirrors in space or reflective dust pumped into the atmosphere would be "important insurance" against rising emissions, and has lobbied for such a strategy to be recommended by a UN report on climate change...

Well. That's progress since Ronald Reagan's solution ("wear a hat"), but I believe this has been tried before...

It didn't end well for Monty.

— Larry, Attack Monkey, Light Reading