Also by jamie

It was almost too good to be true. When the Brazilian government announced last week that deforestation rates in the Amazon had dropped for the third year running, it was certainly a cause for celebration. But it now transpires that one of the government's own agencies is colluding with logging companies so they can gain access to areas of high-value timber that would otherwise be off limits.

According to the update board in the climate camp info tent, the various groups of protesters have had various degrees of success, not least a troupe of clowns. They're among the campers who have made it to the BAA offices at Heathrow, although apparently they've been penned in by police. Other teams have also made it, despite a heavy police presence, and 250 are currently coralled behind the BAA building. Others remain at large. Elsewhere, a group have been in Sipson village marking out where the planned third runway will be.

It's a shame the New York Times only allows subscribers to see their stories online (don't get any ideas, UK press moguls) because there was an absolute corker in yesterday's edition that's been sent round on email. Al Gore, when talking to columnist Nicholas Kristof, advocated a programme of direct action to tackle climate change:

"We are now treating the Earth's atmosphere as an open sewer," [Mr Gore] said, and (perhaps because my teenage son was beside me) he encouraged young people to engage in peaceful protests to block major new carbon sources. "I can't understand why there aren't rings of young people blocking bulldozers," Mr. Gore said, "and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power plants."

Is this the first sign of a change for the man who used to be the Next President of the United States? Will he shake off the mild-mannered lecturer schtick, going underground to lead troops of young activists into confrontation with police, power companies and politicians? Will there be a resurgence of grass-roots politics where our elected officials through off the trappings of state to take their lead from the people?

Nah, maybe not. Besides, I don't think a beret and beard would suit Al. Still, Kristof ended his column with a rather salient point:

Critics [of climate change] scoff that the scientific debate is continuing, that the consequences are uncertain - and they're right. There is natural variability and lots of uncertainty, especially about the magnitude and timing of climate change.

In the same way, terror experts aren't sure about the magnitude and timing of Al Qaeda's next strike. But it would be myopic to shrug that because there's uncertainty about the risks, we shouldn't act vigorously to confront them — yet that's our national policy toward climate change, and it's a disgrace.

Despite changing a misleading title on my previous post (which seemed accurate on the scant information available earlier this morning), I'm now beginning to think even 'BAA wins its case' is a bit too strong. Sure, they managed to get something out of their High Court injunction but it's a far cry from what they applied for.