One of the latest bits of nonsense to emerge from our benighted Scottish Executive is the assertion that "Scots cause five times more damage to the planet than the average Chinese".

Feeling guilty? Then don't! According to one of my constituents, a lady of no mean intellect, 'climate change' is the new, 21st Century tyranny. Marx, Stalin and Tommy Sheridan are replaced by the gurus of the G8 stage and a vast new industry of high-salaried, taxpayer-funded, environmental jobsworths.

The good lady could very well have a point, suggesting that Co2-driven 'global warming' is a huge political conspiracy invented by post-socialism lefties to beat up business, industry and those of us with oil-guzzling Agas and 4x4s.

Even in the rarefied and usually overheated atmosphere of the Moray Council, I hear dark mutterings about 'climate change commitments' and 'carbon footprints'. Someone even good-humouredly asked if I cycled to Elgin for meetings. What? The Beast of Alves on a bike?

At least, thankfully, Moray does not yet have a Real Nappy Promotion Officer.

Contrary to Al Gore's movie, global warming is most probably rooted in the 100,000-year ice-age/interglacial cycle with a touch of sun spot influence - an entirely natural phenomenon grabbed by politicians and exploited as a vast tax-extorting crusade.

Indeed, the Christian era alone has experienced the bumper crops of the Great Mediaeval Warming Period from about 950AD to 1500, the Little Ice Age which followed taking us up to the 1890s, a good part of the 20th Century when melting polar ice was predicted to flood London, and the last 10 years or so during which NASA has actually recorded a slight temperature fall.

Yet, despite all the evidence, governments persist in justifying 'environmental taxes' based on manipulation and half-truths.

According to leading scientist Zbigniew Jaworowski of Warsaw, natural atmospheric water vapour contributes some 95% to the total greenhouse effect, while 97% of Co2, the primary greenhouse gas, comes from natural emissions to which human activity adds just 3%. That is just 0.12% of the total greenhouse effect.

So, the politicians continue to step up their legalised extortion of tax money in the name of cutting Co2 emissions which make up just 0.12% of the total greenhouse gas effect.

Meanwhile, the Scottish Parliament IKEA palace is in long, long, summer recess. So we can all enjoy the added seasonal bonus of temporary respite from the Scottish Executive's incessant meddling. Make the most of it!