The depressing bookends of Australia’s reignited carbon wars are displayed by the restoration of climate populist Barnaby Joyce to Australia’s second top political job having coincided with a climate activist campaign forcing former Nationals leader and deputy prime minister Mark Vaile to withdraw from the chancellorship of Newcastle University.

The two events are linked because it’s the kind of anti-fossil-fuel climate zealotry displayed in Newcastle that has helped to bring Mr Joyce back to the front rank of politics in Canberra.