"Why is it so hot?" "Is it from climate change?" "Will it be hotter when I grow up?"

Over the last few weeks many of us will have been asked these questions by our grandchildren and other young people close to us. How, as grandparents and elders, do we respond?

Ideally, as with all their questions and conversations, with honesty, kind honesty. The science of what our climate future holds is bleak, the number of extreme weather events is due to increase and the planet will struggle to grow the food we need and to support the people living on it. These are the facts. But do we want to dwell on them with children and young people? No. The healthy response is to encourage them to enjoy, value and nurture what exists in the natural world and to engage with protecting it in any positive way they, and we, can.

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We learn from our children, nowhere more than in the realm of the environment. They come home from school with ideas about growing plants and food and looking after their fellow creatures. At the outside door of my daughter’s flat in Glasgow is a small piece of paper saying “This is where my pet slug lives…please take........

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