None so deaf as those who cannot hear climate change warnings

HURRICANE Harvey was a sobering experience for some Americans but they can take some comfort in the fact that they are not as vulnerable to weather chaos as citizens of far poorer countries.

Harvey has been downgraded and receding waters reveal its trail of destruction. Something around 100,000 homes have been hit and the death toll is heading towards 50 and is expected to rise.

The exceptional monsoon season in South Asia has had an impact of an entirely different order — millions of people across India, Nepal, and Bangladesh have been affected and more than 1,200 have died.

At home Met Éireann has issued a status yellow rain warning for many counties for today and tomorrow morning suggesting that climate change — or climate breakdown as it is called now — knows no boundaries.

Despite this, Melania Trump’s unfortunate shoe choices for her Texas sortie got more attention than her husband’s increasingly preposterous refusal to act on humanity’s role in climate breakdown.

There are indeed none so deaf as those who will not hear. And we wonder about the lemmings.