The world’s environment is in crisis. The Himalayan glaciers are shrinking. The Pacific Ocean is expanding. The atmosphere is thickening. My cough is sickening. My doctor said I am suffering from a smoker’s cough, and that I’d better give it up.

I did give it up — consulting that quack. I could have told him that my problem stems from excess carbon emissions spewed by industrial chimneys, car exhausts and hot air from know-alls who assemble in places like Copenhagen, Bali and Kyoto where they can party in discos under thousands of coloured bulbs burning all the energy they brag about saving.

These climate-change chatterati drive 4-wheel gas-guzzlers, yet have the gall to criticise India for being the fourth largest ‘pumper-outer’ of carbon dioxide.

President Bush (remember him?) added insult to injury by declaring that Indian cows who expel CO2 every time they burp are the major contributors to the world’s gasps.

He calculated the burps per day of 3 billion cows, multiplied that by 365 days and concluded that there’s an awful lot of Indian burp flying around.

So what? Does he expect our bovine population to improve its manners overnight? Has nobody told him that his White House staff used to giggle at his oft-repeated “Excuse me” before, after and during Cabinet meetings?

Prior to the greenhouse gassing in Copenhagen, our Jairam Ramesh volunteered that India would reduce its footprint by 25 per cent. (How would he do that — by snipping off our toes?) The truth is, we can begin making significant cuts by reducing the length of VVIP motorcades comprising 40 sedans, three police jeeps and one ambulance every time their wives want to do a bit of shopping.

Also, do these people need to air-condition their lawns, even in winter? Ramesh guiltily confides that our cattle emissions are not only oral, but also originate from the other end of their digestive tracts.

Before George Bush, or his successor, finds out, Ramesh has drawn up an elaborate plan to bottle all these trillion cubic gigatons of cattle gas, and sell it to the Pentagon so that they can escalate their Drone offensive against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, as well as declare war against the Maoists in Orissa and Jharkand or whoever else it perceives as a threat to the US way of life.

Ramesh himself can demonstrate the sincerity for his carbon reduction promises by ceasing to blow-dry his hair three times a day.