More immediately frightening for the planet were images beamed home from the European Space Agency on Sunday night. They showed a 40-kilometre-long Antarctic ice bridge had broken into shards. It had been working as a dam, holding back the endangered Wilkins Ice Shelf, a quarter the size of Tasmania.

In a speech in Prague that day, Barack Obama focused on the nuclear threat. The US President condemned North Korea's "provocative" rocket launch. More significantly, he promised to help rid the world of nuclear arms, an objective championed by our own Kevin Rudd. "I am not naive," Obama said. "This goal will not be reached quickly - perhaps not in my lifetime."

Within his lifetime, however, global warming will transform the planet, if the weight of scientific opinion is correct. Both Obama and Rudd have accepted that it is. Both have accepted it is a clear and present danger but both have fallen far short of the carbon emissions targets that the same scientists say must be met to avoid catastrophe. They are not easy targets, it must be said.TOLD YOU SO

When an earthquake turned the medieval Italian city of L'Aquila to ruins on Monday, a university researcher, Giampaolo Giuliani, was not surprised. Having noted several smaller quakes and a build-up of radon gas, he had posted a YouTube video warning locals to evacuate. They reported him to police for spreading alarm. Even now, after his prediction came so disastrously true, scientists and politicians are dismissive of Giuliani. There is no predicting earthquakes, they say. It was a fluke. Maybe so. Somewhere, some day, some bloke with an "end is nigh" placard is going to get it right.

Another piece of science news on Monday was not in the flimsy category. Australian scientists had been observing previous periods of warming through the prism of ancient stalagmites, dated between 190,000 and 245,000 years old, in an underwater cave in Italy. They warned the world's ice sheets would melt even faster than had been thought.

Elsewhere, the US Geological Survey and British Antarctic Survey mapped 174 ice coastlines on the Antarctic Peninsula. They counted 142 in retreat. They considered it "among the most profound, unambiguous examples of the effects of global warming on Earth".

As they seek a path of consensus on climate change, world leaders might consider the example set by NSW's warring outlaw bikie gangs, who held a secret summit in Queensland to grapple with challenging and abstract notions such as non-violence, co-operation and improving their public image. Then again …TARGETS ACQUIRED

The bikies might look to Telstra and the banks: outstanding models of how not to behave.

Kevin Rudd delivered a blockbusting, monopoly-smashing "up yours" to Telstra on Tuesday - and some fibre to the khyber of Sol Trujillo. The outgoing Telstra boss, it must be said, is an easy target, but he's the one who painted the bullseye on his backside.

The PM announced a $43 billion plan to deliver high-speed internet to every home and business in the nation, including a "super fast" fire-optic network to nine out of 10 Australians. It will bypass Telstra's copper wires. And if Telstra tries to stand in the way, it could be forced to give up its existing cable networks.

Banks, too, are easy targets. That doesn't mean they aren't bastards. They are, as they blithely confirmed on Tuesday. The Reserve Bank cut official interest rates by 0.25 percentage points to 3 per cent - a 49-year low. NAB pocketed the lot. It gave its customers nil, zilch and nothing. Bastards! The Commonwealth managed 0.1 of a percentage point. Bastards! Go on, say it. Feels better, doesn't it?

Now slap yourself and go shopping. Your Kevin-kerching cheque has arrived, or it's in the mail. If you must stay at home and hoard it, admit there are bigger things to worry about. Here's some stimulus: the International Monetary Fund warns the world is in a self-feeding spiral akin to the Great Depression, and that it could lead to civil unrest and war if allowed to continue.

North Korea's state press, meanwhile, reported on Tuesday that Kim Jong-il had been "choked with sobs" of regret that the money spent on his rocket launch could not have been used to help his citizens. "Our people will still understand," he was quoted saying. Bastard. Sadly, the news from our sources in China is that Kim won't choke any time soon. He drank his Chinese hosts under the table at a recent banquet. Might they have sung a drinking song: "Long liver, long liver, General Kim Jong-il."DRY HUMOUR, NOT FUNNY

It's a drier argument on the Murray. We learned on Wednesday that the water flowing into the river between January and March was at its lowest level in the 117 years of record-keeping. The inflow in the three years to March was 5160 gigalitres, less than half the previous low during the 1943-46 drought.

"We've had big droughts before and big floods before, but what we didn't have was climate change," said Rob Freeman, chief executive of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority.

If toxic wetlands in South Australia do not grab our attention, the destruction of the nation's food bowl might. At the National Press Club that day, the chief executive of the Australian Food and Grocery Council, Kate Carnell, chewed over Australia's food security: "If your water is not there - no water, no food - that's a bit of a problem." Just a bit.

But to hell with all that. We're a cheerful, sunny mob here in Australia, and on Wednesday this was confirmed by an 8 per cent leap in consumer confidence in April, as measured by Westpac and the Melbourne Institute. That was on top of an already shop-happy March. Consumer indices elsewhere show the Americans and Europeans are gloomy. But they would be, wouldn't they? They're not here.

Then Westpac announced it would cut its rates by 0.1 of a percentage point. Bastards! So did ANZ. Bastards! There's only one thing to do. Close your account and invest in banks.WE ARE FAMILY

Want a peek at where the sun doesn't shine? Go no further than Australia. On Thursday we learned the jobless rate in March (while we'd all been splurging) climbed to 5.7 per cent, seasonally adjusted, from 5.2 per cent in February. "Sobering news," said the Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. It was especially sobering for the 38,900 people who lost full-time jobs last month.

But still, we learned yesterday, Australians are incorrigibly content. The latest Australian Unity Wellbeing Index found our overall level of personal satisfaction at its highest since the Athens Olympics in 2004. Despite the global financial crisis. Despite the fires and the floods - and maybe because of them. The relief effort that followed the disasters appeared to create a "heightened sense of belonging to the Australian family", said the author of the index, Bob Cummins, from the school of psychology at Deakin University in Victoria. A similar effect had followed September 11, 2001, and the 2005 Bali bombings. Which is kind of odd, but nice.

Queer folk, aren't we? When Ruddbank delivers his fibre-optic information age, it should include a portal into the fibre of our minds.