“For the media, climate change is Kryptonite. It fails to tick almost every one of the boxes that defines a story. It’s not new: it’s part of the background noise of 21st century life. It lacks a hard deadline. There seem to be summits coming up, but there have been summits before. The crisis also lacks a specific location, and what places there are – those that will be hit first by, say, rising water levels – are far away. It’s long on technical details, and short on human narrative – it lacks a clearly defined, single villain. Above all, it’s a bit of a downer. Plenty of news is depressing, but a world rendered uninhabitable by human beings? Faced with that, who wouldn’t rather talk about something trivial? (Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian. His words have been lighly edited).

He’s right, of course. If he wasn’t, something really useful would have been done internationally by now. Epicureans know that if, for two hundred years, you have poured carbon-heavy gunk into our pristine atmosphere there have to be costs. No one, unless they are paid to say so, now believes that climate change is caused completely naturally.

So all an Epicurean can do is to fly as little as possible, use a car that doesn’t belch fumes, and generally make as small a carbon footprint as possible on this planet. We all , I’m sure, preach this and believe it – actually being disciplined about it is another matter.