MOGADISHU (Spl) – Celebrations broke out across downtown on Thursday after word arrived from America that the U.S. State Department’s key anti-piracy office proposes to add a $114,000-a-year lawyer who will battle against global warming.

Admiral Garaad Mohamed, commander of the National Volunteer Coast Guard that has inspected approximately 40 suspicious foreign ships and their crews along the Somali coast, held up his BlackBerry and read from the department’s budget request for 2010: “The Office of Oceans, International Environmental and Scientific Affairs (L/OES) is dedicating more time and resources to climate change – a presidential priority – which includes ongoing negotiations and initiatives, such as the December 2009 Copenhagen conference.”

To cheers from the crowd of khat-enhanced Coast Guardsmen, he quoted the budget as saying that even the office “has done a tremendous amount of work relating to the increased incidence of piracy off the coast of Somalia and the April 2009 Maersk Alabama incident, including supporting the Secretary‘s personal engagement on the subject.” Continuing to read from the budget document, he added that “until the broader problem of instability in Somalia is addressed, it is expected that piracy will be an ongoing problem in the region,” and therefore the anti-piracy office needs a top-flight global warming lawyer.

“We of the Somalia National Volunteer Coast Guard fully realize the hellish menace that global warming poses to the planet that we all share,” said the admiral. “We are working every day to stop it, and we are obliged therefore to commend the Obama Administration for its bold approach.”

“Skeptics like Cap’n Joe Barton and his crew of buccaneers at the House Energy and Commerce Committee need to change with the times, like we have,” the leader said. “We here in the National Volunteer Coast Guard are doing our part, and we appreciate any help we get from the U.S. State Department.”