Bon nuit, Senator Inhofe

We should all rejoice at one change brought about by Tuesday's US election.

Thanks to the Democrats victory in the Senate, Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe will no longer be head of the Senate Environmental Public Works Committee. Inhofe is famous for calling global warming the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people" and openly supporting the dubious conclusionns of those termed climate 'skeptics' over actual scientific assessments, including those conducted by his own government. He actually received a score of zero from the League of Conservation Voters.

Forget feelings about politics, about climate science, or about environmental issues: it was an insult to American people to have someone who displayed outright contempt for science and reason, as head of a committee whose very decisions depend on scientific expertise.

Inhofe is being replaced by Democrat Barbara Boxer of California, who has stated that climate change is one of the greatest challenges of this century, a swing so far in the other direction it will give Senate watchers whiplash.