What an interesting, appalling time to be alive. Most people I know are science-literate enough to know what's happening, affluent enough to be able to take personal action such as stopping flying and cutting discretionary driving.

But they don't.

Nor are they willing to make submissions, lobby, protest or indeed lift a finger to influence the political process. Even the mention of anthropogenic climate disruption makes them keen to change the subject.

We're living in a madhouse. So what to do?

To give up would be an abdication of moral responsibility. Inactivism is a deliberate choice to leave our kids with a wrecked world. We have to do what we can, even if the best we can hope for is to soften the catastrophe by cutting a fraction of a degree off the final global temperature rise.

And who knows; there might perhaps come a time when excessive consumption is seen for what it is: contemptible and parasitic.