Sydney took the full blast of summer during the week. Some of us might have wondered: is this the turning point? The season when the summer outstays its welcome, drier and hotter with every year? And whatever happened to those cute Christmas beetles?

Meanwhile, 2018 ends with the world mired as it has been for more than a decade in the politics of alleviating global warming. At the climate summit in Katowice, Poland, renowned British naturalist David Attenborough warned: "If we don't take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon." But the summit produced another frustrating outcome, as did its forebears, Paris, Copenhagen, Kyoto and Rio.

A climate protest outside Sydney Town Hall earlier this month. Credit:Christopher Pearce

Listening to those who govern us, it sometimes seems as if despair is the only logical response. We have a Prime Minister who, as treasurer, gleefully wielded a lump of coal in Parliament, saying it was nothing to be afraid of. Scott Morrison has made restraining power costs, not fixing emissions, the focus of his bid for re-election in May. He says Australia is meeting its Paris pledge of a 26 per cent cut in emissions by 2030, based on 2005 levels, "in a canter", but experts say this target is no longer enough to help the planet stave off dangerous warming.

But despair, so damaging to mental health, is not the answer. When despair leads to apathy, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We can't escape climate change entirely but any action that leads to a better future is worth taking.