Human societies are generally conservative, averse to substantial change – and they are getting in the way of the necessary intervention on climate change and emissions reduction.

The evidence that conservatives often deny or minimise climate change is everywhere, both here and overseas. Donald Trump recently signalled his view in strong terms: climate change, he said, was “the worst con job ever perpetrated on the world”. Clearly, discussion of it gets in the way of his mantra that we should “Dig, baby, dig” for the riches that underlie wealth creation as he understands it. He gave no reason for his view on climate change: his schtick is to say what suits him, never mind the evidence.

Tony Abbott, as Australia’s conservative Prime Minister a decade ago, emphatically rejected the science of climate change when he called it “absolute crap.” He also rejected sea level rise as a problem, saying that a century of photographs on Manly Beach showed no evidence of it. Never mind that these photographs would largely have been happy snaps of people enjoying themselves: they could not realistically be cited as evidence for anything of a scientific nature.

Abbott’s coalition successors, in dumping net zero by 2050, have shown that dealing with climate change has become a low priority on the political right. Whether climate change even exists, it seems, is just a matter of personal opinion.

In fact, it is as much a matter of personal opinion as whether the sun rose in the east this morning.

Whether climate changes is a........

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