It’s interesting to speculate on the folk who are adamantly opposed to engaging in a fact-based discussion about climate change. Are they simply deeply cynical billionaires who frankly don’t care what happens to the planet so long as they can keep making money? Or are they genuinely stupid people who truly believe the nonsense they spout?

Even if CO2 concentrations play a variable role in climate change (which is unlikely) the hard fact is that CO2 emissions are acidifying the oceans and slowly killing the phytoplankton on which we depend for 80% of the world’s oxygen. This is basic chemistry and not a subject for dispute. So pretending we can go on pumping billions of tons of CO2 into the air is, frankly, untenable.

Unfortunately it seems unlikely that we’re going to make meaningful changes. Which bodes ill for life on our fragile planet.