Hilarious stuff from Michael O'Leary in the Independent this morning. Just when you thought Ryanair's chief executive couldn't make a bigger prat of himself, he manages to up the ante. This time, by quite some considerably margin.

In his latest tirade against all things environmental, he appears to be inviting the audience to play "climate sceptic bingo", such is the density of clichés and canards contained within each of the sentences he utters. See how long it takes you to shout "House!" when reading through his rant:

Nobody can argue that there isn't climate change. The climate's been changing since time immemorial. Do I believe there is global warming? No, I believe it's all a load of bullshit. But it's amazing the way the whole fucking eco-warriors and the media have changed. It used to be global warming, but now, when global temperatures haven't risen in the past 12 years, they say 'climate change'. Well, hang on, we've had an ice age. We've also had a couple of very hot spells during the Middle Ages, so nobody can deny climate change. But there's absolutely no link between man-made carbon, which contributes less than 2% of total carbon emissions [and climate change].

He suggested scientists had invented and perpetuated the theory in order to gain research grants. "Scientists argue there is global warming because they wouldn't get half of the funding they get now if it turns out to be completely bogus," he said.

The scientific community has nearly always been wrong in history anyway. In the Middle Ages, they were going to excommunicate Galileo because the entire scientific community said the Earth was flat... I mean, it is absolutely bizarre that the people who can't tell us what the fucking weather is next Tuesday can predict with absolute precision what the fucking global temperatures will be in 100 years' time. It's horseshit.

He mocked global warming campaigners, describing the United Nations as "one of the world's most useless organisations", its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as "utter tosh", and US politician Al Gore as someone who "couldn't even get fucking re-elected" after a boom.

He then comes back down out the clouds and begins to direct his ire - in a marginally (all things being relative) more reasoned manner - towards aviation taxes:

When they introduced it the Treasury said: 'We will ring-fence this money and use it for global climate change initiatives'. We've written to them once every six months – they never answer the letter – saying: 'What do you use the money for?' It's a straight-forward tax scam... My average fare is £34. I pay passenger tax of £10: I pay 33% of my revenues in these aviation taxes. Aviation gets a crap deal. This is the great historical justification among environmentalists for taxing air travel: 'They don't have tax on fuel'. The only reason we don't pay tax on fuel is that governments can't tax it because you'll upload fuel somewhere else if they tax it.

Yes, of course, the Treasury should be making it explicitly clear where any ring-fenced revenues are being directed, but to then claim that aviation gets a "crap deal" on tax is presumably his idea of a joke. It would certainly be interesting to see what bile would pour from his lips if aviation did ever properly "internalise its externalities", but pigs will likely fly (presumably not on Ryanair) before that ever happens.

The biggest laugh, though, is provided by Greenpeace's reaction to O'Leary's outburst:

"Personally, I wouldn't trust 'O'Really' to tell me the price of a seat on his own airline, but to be fair his position [on climate change] does have the support of such intellectual heavyweights as Nick Griffin, Sarah Palin and George W Bush," said Joss Garman, a Greenpeace spokesman.

Quite. What's that about judging someone by the company they keep?