“I THINK something’s happening,” the most powerful man in the world told an admirably straight-faced CNN journalist last week. “Something’s changing and it’ll change back again.”

Out of context, Donald Trump could have been talking about anything – Doctor Who’s gender, the EDM music scene or even Andrew Neil’s hair. Yet the President was actually doing something more unexpected – recalibrating his stance on what those pesky scientists call “climate change”.

Vague as his musings were, it’s still a remarkable change of tone for Trump – certainly compared to a recent 4.30am tweet where he suggested global warming was a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. I have a theory that the President’s thumb possesses a sentient intelligence of its own, much like Anthony Hopkin’s puppet in Magic – only coming alive when the body sleeps. Perhaps Trump has been fortunate enough to wake before The Thumb revealed that our moon is actually the skull of an ancient dragon who died trying to reach the stars.

Although his latest ramblings to CNN still – on the surface – prove him an unarmed man on the climate change debate battlefield, the President’s softening on the subject is nonetheless notable. He may indeed be trying to meet 99.9 per cent of the scientific community halfway in what is clearly a one-way argument. Or perhaps it was simply guilt, with Trump atoning for causing most of the issue himself with L’Oreal Elnett Supreme Hold.

More likely, the President has been made aware of an alarming new report issued by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, urging every country to immediately take “unprecedented” action to prevent catastrophic weather conditions. Not a coincidence that such extremes of rain and wind would greatly disrupt the Trump hair system too.

Yet, like a broken clock twice a day, it turns out the President was absolutely right that the climate will “change back again” – just not on the tangible geological timetable of human lifespans he was perhaps imagining.

Nothing is normal

WE tend to view the Earth’s present climate – the one suited to the evolution and survival of homo sapiens – as “normal”.

Yet, this planet has more history than Katie Price. Four-and-a-half billion years’ worth – and just as extremes of temperature have terraformed the surface of this ancient rock many times in the past, so they will again until the expanding sun incinerates the whole kit and caboodle in four billion years’ time.

So let’s be clear, when we talk of climate change as humans we speak of the rapid, perceivable change within the lifespan of our own species. Barely a stitch in geological time’s grand tapestry.

A pedantic gripe maybe, but one thing the scientists at Jurassic Park never explain is how these beasts can survive in our climate, which is at least 13°C lower than what they were used to 100 million years ago – with completely different atmospheric conditions.

At times, Scotland itself – before it drifted in this direction and joined England about 400 million years ago – spent millennia as both parched desert and monsoon-drenched jungle. And will again.

In other eras, ice covered the entire planet for millions of years, with at least five major ice ages known in the Earth’s history – the Huronian, Cryogenian, Karoo, Andean-Saharan, and the current Quaternary Ice Age. Yes, we’re still living in an ice age. For evidence, just go to McDonald’s and measure how much Coke you get in that supersize plastic receptacle.

High Price

SO, it turns out climate change “deniers” are madder than you think – the climate is always changing. Yet, today’s scientists accurately draw a distinction between huge shifts in the planet’s climate stretching over billions of years and the recent rapid warming trend. It’s certainly alarming that the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s data shows every summer since 1976 has been hotter then the one before.

Global temperatures have already risen 1°C since the industrial revolution and scientists broadly agree that excess greenhouse gas emissions are the primary cause of this issue.

Yet, the planet has only ever had three settings: “greenhouse”, when tropical temperatures extend to the poles and there are no ice sheets at all; “icehouse”, when there is some permanent ice; and “snowball”, in which Earth’s entire surface is frozen. We are technically still in the fag end of an “icehouse” era – the Quaternary – which will then follow previous patterns to enter a “greenhouse” phase, with or without our input.

While it’s undeniable humans are accelerating the process this time around, it would have inevitably happened with or without us. And, eventually, “corrected” with or without us. Seems Bono was a prophet after all.

Just why the planet’s ice periodically advances – and why it retreats again – remains an enduring mystery that glaciologists have only just started to unravel. Humans accelerating climate change notwithstanding, the cycle will continue for billions of years to come after our brief tenure on the planet – boiling hothouse periods and then unbearable cold, wilting all surrounding life. Again, just like Katie Price.

No small beer

WE already know there will be no medicine, baguettes or Nutella after Brexit, but it’s truly alarming news that a pint will soon double in price as a result of climate change. According to a new study from international climate scientists, this price rise will be driven by global shortages of barley, reducing beer production throughout the globe.

They calculated the UK would see a drop of anything up to 1.33 billion litres in the amount we drink each year, with a pint costing up to £7.20 – Shawlands prices,  then. So double that for Ashton Lane.

If you’re thinking of nipping abroad for a cheap pint, think again – European countries like Belgium and Germany’s decline in beer production would be a drought-like 38 per cent. So, in a massive turnaround, it seems Britain may become Europe’s new booze cruise destination – perhaps solving all our post-Brexit economic woes.

And finally ...

IT’S not only Pythagoras who loved right angles, we all do. Non-existent in nature, our brains are intrinsically attracted to manmade straight edges and perfect symmetry – so when the natural world throws up perfectly angled objects it can inspire awe, wonder and myriad alien conspiracy theories.

And this week, the world’s jaw collectively dropped at Nasa’s photo of an Antarctic ice sheet resembling an albino version of the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Colourful speculation concerning ice-encrusted alien bases has been dismissed, but the true explanation is still deeply alarming. This huge “tabular” iceberg seems to have snapped off entirely in one piece from the crumbling Larsen C ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula – more evidence that we’ll all need to evolve into dolphins pretty quickly.

Yet Nasa should be commended for bringing this apocalyptic sight to our attention – and also for being being so eagle-eyed to differentiate between all the other cracked, cold, right-angled, white oddites of nature causing disruptive waves in 2018.