See what net zero does?

We’ve seen it happen. A fat woman decides enough’s enough. She starts a punishing regimen of diet and exercise, shedding first ounces, then pounds, then stones.

Within a year or so she becomes quite svelte, but she can’t stop. And what do you know, a few months later she develops anorexia and dies, or damn near.

Or look at Bruce Lee. The poor chap learned that hydration is an essential part of conditioning. So he started drinking gallons of water – and died of overhydration. And unlike a real man who dies of drinking too much booze, Lee didn’t even enjoy drinking too much water. Give me C2H5OH over H2O any day.

By the circuitous route of such analogies, I’ve managed both to identify the reason for the deadly cold spell paralysing North America and to come up with the solution before frost does the same to us.

Deadly is the right word to describe it. At least 34 people have died so far, killed by blizzards, power cuts, road accidents, river ice giving way, tree branches falling down and so on.

Millions of people are left without electricity, thousands of flights are cancelled every day. Shops can’t sell off all the carloads of useless trinkets they’ve stocked up for the season, lorries can’t deliver goods, the economy is taking a huge hit.

This is the coldest spell for decades, some meteorologists say ever. And you know what’s to blame? Global warming, or rather overreaction to it.

Like that fat woman eating too little food and Bruce Lee drinking too much water, Americans have overdone their commitment to net zero carbon emissions, that’s what I think. Instead of happily driving those house-sized 8-cylinder boats powered by real juice down the I-10, they’ve switched to Teslas and are now freezing to death. Thanks a whole lot, Elon bloody Musk.

It’s not just those murderous Teslas either. Wind farms, solar panels, all other forms of green energy have conspired to eliminate carbon out of the atmosphere or at least to get it down to a level that would make Greta happy.

As a direct result, the greenhouse effect has been replaced with the icehouse defect. About 60 per cent of the US population are facing weather warnings. They are shivering in the dark, shining their phone lights at thermometers and watching the mercury speeding downwards.

Instead of being fried by global warming, ‘our planet’ is about to turn into an icebound wasteland, and Newton’s Third Law explains why: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. (I often cite this law because it’s the only one I remember from secondary school. I drank my way through it, and it wasn’t too much water – I’m not suicidal.)

The action was the ill-advised assault on atmospheric carbon. The reaction is the snowy hell into which America has plunged.

You may think that my analysis of the situation lacks forensic rigour and relies too much on conjecture. Perhaps. After all, I’m neither a meteorologist nor a climatologist. But, as an old ad once said, “Noah’s Ark was designed by an amateur. The Titanic was designed by a professional.”

Perhaps an amateur unbiased by any excessive knowledge or indeed corporate solidarity can detect some obvious truths that escape professionals. Remember it was accredited doctors who told our hypothetical woman to eat less food and advised the very real Bruce Lee to drink more water.

If you are willing to accept my diagnostic hypothesis, the solution to the problem offers itself. Americans – and Europeans! – should turn every Tesla, Prius, wind turbine and solar panel into a bonfire.

In the immediate term, this will provide much needed warmth and light for the stricken areas. In the long run, this measure will ensure a steady supply of carbon dioxide to keep us all warm throughout the year.

As a side benefit, the aesthete in me would love to toss Greta Thunberg into one of the pyres, but the humanist in me balks at such cruelty. So I’ll settle for a version of the Jeremy Clarkson treatment: marching Greta naked through the streets of Buffalo, with people tossing snowballs at her.

On a serious note (something I find hard to strike on the crest of the festive wave of booze), perhaps we should accept that the weather is sometimes warm, sometimes cold and always out of our control.

So let’s stop playing silly games that are certain to beggar us all – even if they aren’t directly responsible for freezing us to death.