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Nor did that broken record stop the campaign from yet another pledge, an outlandish promise of net-zero emissions by 2050, the achievement of which is either a fantasy or a fraud. It might be thought that a government that has a very spotty record concerning its promises of 2015 — balancing the budget by 2019, end of first-past-the-post, are but two eminent examples — would be wary of any fresh vows, particularly one whose due date is 31 years out.

But on global warming, such is the sponginess of the issue, and the ooze of righteousness that surrounds it, that politicians give themselves all sorts of licence to make promises that not only they have no hope of keeping, but they will be long, long, out of office, or even passed over to the exquisite atmosphere of heaven, or to the more sulphurous ambience of the other place, when the time comes to check their record. The 2050 pledge is pure delusion.

Sadly, many people are comfortable with delusions when it comes to global warming. What else are we to make of the phenomenon of a 16-year-old wandering or sailing the planet, a Joan of Arc of our times, being offered access to the highest deliberative chambers — at the UN, the U.S. Congress, the U.K. Parliament and others — to preach her naïve, testy, panic-laden message?

Sadly, many people are comfortable with delusions when it comes to global warming

Why is this 16-year-old of such assumed authority? Were there another 16-year-old available — and I’m sure there are — to preach the opposite, would the world’s legislatures and the world’s press be quite so supine in offering that teenager the same access, the same cringing deference, the same embarrassing applause as Greta Thunberg now harvests? Not a chance. For the present, and for reasons that cannot be fathomed, the young Swede is now the anointed one, and her dour, immature sermonettes a fresh gospel for our times.