Teenage climate protestors were born of our abuse of the planet

I apologise in advance. I try not to start these columns with a rant. It’s a great privilege to be given space like this to express a point of view, and I’ve tried to accept that other people have a point of view, too. And that (mostly) they’re entitled to it.

But I’m sick to my back teeth of all these middle-aged men — and it is mostly men — sneering at the young people who took to the streets last week to protest at the world’s failure to tackle climate change decisively. These men have been having a sort of collective temper tantrum, like overgrown, spoiled children.