At least while Rome was burning Nero merely played with his stupid fiddle.

He didn't join the barbarians in the streets sacking the city, putting its residents to the sword and its buildings to the torch. After the last week in Australian climate politics, I doubt whether anybody from the government would be able to show the same forbearance. Scott Morrison would probably have a high old time of it, running around whacking people upside the head with his giant lump of coal.

We'll all be burnt to a crisp. Except for the coal-carrying ScoMo. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

It can be hard in the witless hysteria of the moment to take the longer view, but here it is.

This year was hotter than last year. Next year will probably be hotter than this one. It will go this way now, with occasional quirks in the statistics, a marginally cooler year, a massively hotter and stormier one, until there is a discontinuity; that is, until human civilisation comprehensively breaks its dependency on fossil fuel technologies, or climate change breaks human civilisation.