Scientists admit global warming is a hoax (April fools)

The New York Times quotes NASA climate scientist James Hansen, one of the most outspoken advocates of limiting greenhouse gas emissions, who says he bought Mr. Gore's ruse "hook, line, and sinker."

"I have to admit, Al got me good," said Mr. Hansen as he packed up his personal belongings at his office at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. "Despite my decades of experience in climate modeling and satellite meteorology, I would just get mesmerized whenever he started showing me all those fancy charts and tables. The man is a real Svengali."

Not all scientists were fooled by Mr. Gore's ruse, but many remained silent nonetheless. The Associated Press quotes an anonymous marine biologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who says she knew all along that "this climate change stuff was completely bogus."

"But I played along," she said. "The opportunities for securing global-warming-related grant money were just too great for me to resist."

"Sweet, sweet grant money," she added.

Following the Nobel committee's announcement, national scientific academies from 187 countries hastily drafted a joint statement denouncing the theory of anthropogenic global warming and expressing a renewed humility in the face of complex natural phenomena:

It is our hope that, whenever future generations find themselves swayed by the notion that one can derive generalizations about the physical world by gathering measurable data and subjecting it to logical analysis, they will recall the humbling and extraordinary events of today, April Fools Day, 2009.

The only major scientific body not to sign the statement was the Royal Society of Canada, whose country has been brought to a standstill by a massive infestation of polar bears.

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