As we slop through the fifth heatwave of the summer, the West Midlands burns and even our rail lines appear to be buckling under the swelter, our impressive-so-far prime minister, Andy Burnham, remains tight-lipped on this most pressing of issues/disasters. 

The man’s silence has led to over 50 climate groups teaming up and having a pop at him. Quite right, too: fixing the cost-of-living crisis, increasing prosperity and so on seems somewhat pointless if we run out of food/water/breathable air. 

Oh wait. Now he’s said something. Visiting the area and homes devastated in the inferno visited upon Stourbridge this week, PM Burnham admitted that he’d “never seen scenes like this in Britain, where you just see a whole house gutted, smouldering,” before adding that “we have to face up to the changing climate … there’s no point denying where we are. We need to face up to it. We need more clean energy.”

So, that’s some progress, at least. I wonder what Kemi Badenoch or Clacton’s latest MP, Nigel Farage, would be compelled to say if they deigned to visit the ruins. This is terrible, so we must scrap net zero? Sounds weird, doesn’t it? That’s because it is and they are.

Wildfires across the UK have hit record levels this year, you probably won’t be too surprised to learn. Things are getting so messy that there are calls for our fire brigades to be better prepared for the growing menace. 

Meanwhile, the US has recorded its hottest ever July – so, what has the world’s sole remaining Gianni Infantino supporter, Donald Trump, done? He’s paid a German firm $1.22bn to give up its offshore wind leases and plough its resources into fossil fuel concerns instead. Clive James wrote that, in Hitler, it was as if the devil himself rose from hell and stalked the earth for a spell. Today, what are we to make of people like Trump, who in the face of unfolding catastrophe actually take steps to dismantle green energy production and INCREASE our carbon output? Are the Telegraph, Farage etc actually acting this way because they’re compelled by a devilish death-drive; a commitment to cleanse the world of life; powdered with the nihilistic wolfish detachment of a sulking, skulking incel? 

It’s certainly one explanation. 

As previously discussed in this ranty, read-by-no-one column, it’s become de rigueur amongst the climate change denial community to admit that something is afoot with the weather (what with it being difficult to convince people that everything’s fine when their homes are burning down) and to turn the guns on net zero instead. According to them, transitioning to net zero will destroy the economy. However, that isn’t true, you’ll no doubt be astonished to learn. The government’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) issued this report in May that reveals “the total additional cost of a single fossil fuel price spike of 2022 magnitude is likely to be as large as the total net additional cost of meeting the pathway to Net Zero across every year to 2050”.

Blimey. And when the costs caused by climate change are factored in –  flailing production, strained health services, burning infrastructure, urgently purchased air conditioning etc – shifting to net zero as soon as possible is clearly imperative, if the economic aspect is your chief concern. (I don’t expect for a moment that, say, a wildfire-obliterated nature reserve, its diverse flora and fauna consumed by flames, to be of any importance to the average, money-struck denier.)

Writing in the report, Nigel Topping, chair of the CCC,  said: “If you’re still harbouring doubts about any of this, you’re either an idiot or a liar. Get out of the way and look at the floor on the way out.”

No, he didn’t. He actually said: “In light of current world events, it’s more important than ever for the UK to move away from being reliant on volatile foreign fossil fuels, to clean, domestic, less wasteful energy.”

So, yeah, that’s about it. Let’s hope for some rain.