I sometimes wonder whether much of the rage which swirls around these days is down to a collective sense of shame at our own suicidal stupidity as a species.

Anyone who has worked with addicts or had loved ones who are addicts - I have experience of both - understands that the addicted are filled with anger and self-loathing. They hate themselves because they know they are killing themselves.

Our planet is burning because of our addictions. Wildfires have been raging across Scotland. Arthur’s Seat went up in flames this week - in the middle of our capital, not far from our Parliament.

Our collective response was to effectively shrug. We seem scared to acknowledge what’s happening in front of us. Sublimate fear and self-loathing and you get rage.

The Arthur’s Seat fire shaped itself into a great burning semi-circle. It looked as if the flames were laughing at us. It was the second fire there in three months.

In the Cairngorms, wildfires scorched the earth black for miles. People were evacuated. Helicopters had to ‘water-bomb’ the flames.

Yet what has much of the political conversation been about as these fires rage? More drilling in the North Sea.

It’s very Nero (us) fiddling while Rome (Scotland) burns.

If Burnham lives up to his promise, he’ll kill the SNP and indy stone dead

From Reform to the SNP, money is rotting our politics from the inside out

There are some Scottish traditions which need to die … just get over it

The word ‘absurd’ doesn’t do justice to the cognitive dissonance. It seems we’re rather mad as a nation, for only the mad would turn up the gas when the house is burning.

What makes this all the more crazy is that increasing oil and gas drilling won’t lower........

© Herald Scotland