My dear old dad used to say: "Son, always listen carefully to people who are smarter than you.”

His advice never let me down until the week before his 96th birthday when he told me that he was going to live to 100.

However, on that 96th birthday morning he woke up, announced “I’ve made it", had a massive stroke and died.

Polling shows climate change is not regarded as important an issue for the future as others. Credit:Bloomberg

Dad was a man of the bush and his years in the hills gave him a great awareness of the natural world. Over his last decade we would often walk in his garden and he would furrow his brow and say: “The climate is changing, son. We need to listen to the people who know what’s going on.”