Ten months have passed since pointing out that we have, at best, 100 left before a new, far more dangerous phase of global warming begins. The “chatter” of concern is getting louder. But at the same time, the political system in Britain has been wracked and absorbed more by its own inadequacies than by this fundamental threat to civilisation.

The fall of the Roman Empire was due to a large extent, writes the historian Adrian Goldsworthy, to a system of government that became inward-looking and weakened by internal dissent. Gone was the singular focus from the golden days of the Republic, when a small, trusted coterie of around 1,000 administrators ran the whole empire efficiently.

In its place was a bloated, inefficient and suspicious bureaucracy of 35,000, seeking power and personal advantage. Worst of all, gripped with self-obsession, they took their eyes off the Goths at the gates, and paid a devastating price. Any similarities to actual people alive today and current political circumstances are, of course, entirely unintended and circumstantial. Goldsworthy points out that every age can project its own experience onto the Romans, which just goes to show how much they did actually do for us.