The scientists are now virtually unanimous. Unless we can reduce carbon emissions by 45 per cent by 2030, we have no hope of zero by 2050. If we fail we will bequeath climate horror to our children. You would have thought people would be beside themselves with concern, but they are mostly not. Witness the absence of this issue from the current debate for the leadership of the Conservative Party. 

Yet most people are not stupid nor irresponsible and if they care about anything it is their children’s future. How are we to explain it? The sages, not least the gospels, have been telling us that material goods are an alternative god since the year dot. We’re fixated. St Benedict, most humane and mildest of legislators, is almost manic on the abbot regularly inspecting the brethren’s mattresses lest anybody should be hiding some treasured possession.