...separates Great Britain from the less-than-great France.

THE FLOOD THAT MADE BRITAIN
Twenty-Four-Hour Torrent Broke Link With Continent

September 24, 2006 (Times Online) - Scientists have found that Britain owes its island status to a catastrophic flood that in less than 24 hours swept away the hills that once joined the country to France.

The flood, which took place between 400,000 and 200,000 years ago, instantly turned Britain from being a peninsula of continental Europe into a separate entity, changing for ever the way it would develop.

The finding has emerged from an advanced sonar survey of the bed of the Channel that revealed huge scour marks, deep bowls and piles of rock that could have been created only by a giant torrent of water.

... In the scenario envisaged by [Professor Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum, London, and Sanjeev Gupta, from Imperial College, London], there was a high chalk ridge linking Britain and France running roughly between Dover and Calais. Northeast of this ridge the land sloped down until it met the North Sea. During one of Europe’s glaciations, an ice cap up to a mile thick reached so far south that it stretched from Scotland to Denmark, effectively damming the North Sea. This turned it into a freshwater lake which, fed by rivers, deepened over thousands of years.

This should give global warmists pause.

We can assume that there were few environmentally reckless Neanderthals driving their Hummers back and forth across the proto-British penisula, because there were few Neaderthals and no Hummers. Even the most hysterical global warmists think in years, decades, not hours, not days. Short-order cataclysms remain the preserve of Hollywoodists, who jam their Apocalyptic eco-messages into silly two-hour catastrophes.

If only some sort of Kyoto Treaty had been signed and ratified among the primitive continental peoples, Europa would, no doubt, still be intacto. Ah, but plans inconceivable -- greater than treaties, greater than regulatory bureaucracies -- have made Albion a place apart.

This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England...

John of Gaunt,
Richard II: Act II, Scene i, Ely House, 40-50

PFFT (What is this?): Britain whole 5 | France amputée 5 | Rayonnement français 0