In order to explain why everything is getting colder when we are supposed to be on the precipice of a global warming catastrophe, Al Gore has turned to Venus for inspiration.

Al Gore has a new argument for why carbon dioxide is the global warming boogeyman – and it’s simply out of this world.

Testifying last week before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with yet another one of his infamous slide shows, Al Gore observed that the carbon dioxide (CO2) in Venus’ atmosphere supercharges the second-planet-from-the-sun’s greenhouse effect resulting in surface temperatures of about 870 degrees Fahrenheit. Gore added that it’s not Venus’ proximity to the Sun that makes the planet much warmer than the Earth because Mercury, which is even closer to the Sun, is cooler than Venus. Based on this rationale, then, Gore warned that we need to stop emitting CO2 into our own atmosphere.

In order to distract Anglicans worried about the disintegration of their church, Rowan Williams looks to global warming for inspiration:

On the evening of Feb. 3, the primates heard a presentation about global warming, in which the Most Rev. David Moxon, co-Presiding Bishop of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia, suggested lifestyle changes to address climate change, such as reducing travel and promoting eco-friendly congregations. “The church has biblical, practical and moral obligation to cut down carbon emissions,” he told the media Feb. 4.

Richard Dawkins, in order to explain how life can appear spontaneously from inert matter, posits the intervention of aliens, possibly the same ones causing the global warming on Venus.

To distract American taxpayers from the suspicion that the stimulus is largely bogus, Obama encourages green space exploration, presumably with the intention of assisting the Venusians currently imperilling their planet.

One theme in this bill is superfluous spending items coated with green sugar to make them more palatable. Both NASA and NOAA come in for appropriations that properly belong in the regular budget, but this spending apparently qualifies for the stimulus bill because part of the money from each allocation is reserved for climate-change research. For instance, the bill grants NASA $450 million, but it states that the agency must spend at least $200 million on “climate-research missions,” which raises the question: Is there global warming in space?

Normal service will resume when it gets a little warmer.