LET’S ALL RUN AROUND SCREAMING FOR NO REASON AT ALL

Games of make-believe horror are an essential element of the climate change faith.

Games of make-believe horror are an essential element of the climate change faith.

To walk us through the curious world of the needlessly frightened, here’s Katrina Cosgrove in the Sydney Morning Herald:

I’ve always been open with my 13-year-old about the realities of climate catastrophe.

Bedtime stories must be an absolute delight in the Cosgrove house.

We’ve begun talking in terms of plans for the future. I don’t shield her from the facts. I've asked her whether she’s thought about not having children.

For the love of God, woman. Your daughter is not even halfway to the average age for a first-time mother in Australia. Give her a break.

She can’t afford the luxury of being blissfully ignorant. Time is running out. She performed in a play last year based on Derrick Jensen’s graphic novel As the World Burns.

If time really is running out, why is she performing in plays?

She’s painfully aware of the possibility that her children and grandchildren will have a harder time being alive.

How come? Is she moving to Chad?

The majority of people I speak to argue she’s too young to make these decisions, this will damage her, make her depressed, apathetic and pessimistic.

All climate change parents sound like Carrie's mother.

According to the IPCC report, by as early as 2040 the environment could descend into chaos, with heatwaves, droughts, floods and hurricanes becoming the norm. Food supply will be unstable and water scarce. Any rise in temperature above two degrees is catastrophic. By 2050, ecosystems and biomes will die, more species will become extinct and coral reefs gone. Carbon emissions must plummet to zero now for this to be halted. We’ve already reached the point of no return.

Yet still not a single person has died. Some apocalypse.

Humanity has faced dire challenges for millennia and continued to reproduce, but never before have we faced the possibility of the destruction of the only planet we have.

To gauge a person’s climate mania, just measure the time between them mentioning a two-degree temperature rise and “destruction of the planet”.

Bea, 48, said her two children, 14 and 16, "have already told me they don’t want kids – but they haven’t clearly articulated their reasons as being explicitly due to climate change … the threat of other current issues, such as Trump, rise of the alt-right, neo-liberalism, hyper-sexuality, over-inflation, overpopulation, I’m sure they all have an impact."

Donald Trump is now stopping Australian teenagers from having children.

My daughter holds onto hope: that enough people will choose or be forced to live more sustainably and will resist the juggernaut of industrial civilisation.

So she is moving to Chad.

Judith, 48, said, "My friend is a climate scientist. He says he has started avoiding eye contact with young people. He can’t bear the thought of one of them asking about the future."

Relax. He’s probably just autistic.

Karen, 40, speaking of her own child, believes "her love is her power, not her fear". My daughter’s final verdict about whether to have children will be informed by this depth of love.

So much for science, then. These people are out of their minds.