Australian fires rampage - None so blind

Some early images of how climate change impacts on our world were pictures of polar bears struggling to find food on ever-diminishing ice caps. Underweight and distressed bears pulled at our heartstrings.

Those bears were soon replaced by bewildered Californians standing in the ashes of homes razed by unprecedented wild fires.

The poignancy of their situation was underlined by the fact that though citizens of the world superpower they were as vulnerable as polar bears in the face of primal nature.

This morning those images seem as almost nothing. Footage of thousands of Australians cowering on beaches as they try to escape advancing wild fires must reset our understanding of what climate change entails.

Indulging deniers for the sake of “balance” is no longer acceptable, it is dangerous.

It is sad and deeply ironic that just as President Trump scoffs at any link between California’s town-eating infernos Australia’s prime minister Scott Morrison still rejects any climate change link to deadly bush fires.

There are, indeed, none so blind as those who will not see.