Since appeals to conscience and humanitarianism have failed, I only hope that when the west recognises the link between the problems of the third world and the Crisis of Global Warming, it will do, in self-interest, what it failed to do out of charity and good will.

If the Government fail to take either of the suggested routes to a solution, they will be sending a clear signal that, despite the green commitments from the Prime Minister's spin doctors this week, the Government's environment strategy will be no more than hot air, adding to the Global Warming Crisis.

To understand the likely social, physical and policy implications of the Global Warming Crisis, scientists have no option but to refer to the physical proxy and documentary historical record of previous warming events or other extreme climatic events as analogues of unstable or extreme climate events produced by global warming.

Yet yesterday we heard the Chancellor deliver the most unambitious and piecemeal of responses to the Global Warming Crisis in his "bad news" Budget.