Just 4 the Planet has in recent months been urging the US Congress to pass a major Climate Change Bill introduced by Senator Kerry. We said it was time for the USA to "step up to the plate" and hoped that environmental concerns would take precedence over the mighty dollar.

Unfortunately the mighty dollar won out and America did not step up. Incredibly myopic Republican Senators destroyed any chances of passing the legislation, arguing that taxing the big polluters would lead to higher energy price.

Now in a case of tragic irony the death of climate change legislation in the Senate has been followed by the appearance of two government reports in the past week that underscore the overwhelming scientific case for global warming -- and go out of the way to repudiate sceptics.

First came a report on global climate from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which confirmed that the 2000s were by far the warmest decade in the instrumental record -- as were, in their turns, the 1980s and the 1990s. Unlike year-to-year fluctuations, these 10-year shifts are statistically significant. Further, the report notes that it derived its conclusions from an array of data sources -- not just the land-surface readings that doubters challenge -- from ocean heat uptake to melting land ice to sea level rise.

"If the land surface records were systematically flawed and the globe had not really warmed, then it would be almost impossible to explain the concurrent changes in this wide range of indicators produced by many independent groups," the report said. "The warming of the climate system is unequivocal." The gases most likely responsible for that warming, such as carbon dioxide, continue to accumulate.

Second was a strongly worded response from the Environmental Protection Agency to petitions that it revoke its finding that "climate change is real, is occurring due to emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities and threatens human health and environment." As with much climate-change scepticism, the petitions were based "on selectively edited, out-of-context data and a manufactured controversy," EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said. Among other things, the agency reviewed every document from the "Climategate" e-mail hack at a respected British climate research unit. The EPA found what four other independent studies did: that the e-mails contained some "candid" language but nothing that seriously discredits the scientific consensus on global warming.

Many climate-change sceptics will simply dismiss these reports as more evidence of a sprawling conspiracy instead of what they really are: yet more affirmation of the risks humanity runs if it continues to pump carbon into the atmosphere.

As for the US Congress we can only ask – have US legislators learned nothing from the Gulf disaster and the high price paid when oil lobbyists dictate US energy policy. Shame on you America.