If scientists ruled the world...

Is it a shame the world isn't run by scientists?

What would it be like?

One thing's for sure, by the time the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Montreal ends on Dec. 9, we would have global agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25 or 30 per cent in the follow-on period to the Kyoto agreement, which expires in 2012.

And Lord May, former Chief Scientist to the Government, president of the Royal Society, would be in the Senate.

In his retirement address to the RS, today, he is to criticise the creationist President George Bush for failing to follow through on the climate change commitments made by his father when he was president.

The current President Bush failed even to mention climate change, global warming or greenhouse gases in a 2,700-word speech on energy he made right after the Gleneagles G8 communiqué, Lord May will say.

"In short, we have here a classic example of the problem or paradox of co-operation ... the science tells us clearly we need to act now to reduce inputs of greenhouse gases, but unless all countries act in equitable proportions, the virtuous will be economically disadvantaged while all suffer the consequences of the sinners' inaction. In this sense, the climate-change disaster which looms this century is an appallingly large-scale experiment in the social sciences."

"If this experiment is to end in success for humankind, then it is essential that progress be made at the Montreal meeting."

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