Ms Wente's article is possibly the most incoherent writing on the subject yet.

All pain no gain, but moral leadership is worth something. Our grandparents' uncles, fathers and brothers perished in the mud of Flanders, making no difference whatsoever to the outcome of the Great War. And yet would we dismiss their sacrifice as pointless?

Wente agrees the situation is real, and is dire, and we have to do something. She doesn't know how bad it will get. None of us do. But before it gets there, our grandchiildren's children will be mired in a dystopian future that will be categorically impossible to change.. We won't be there to answer the question of why didn't we do something, however insignificant to begin with, to change things while we still could?

What would we tell them, as we idle our huge SUVs and mammoth pickups in the parking lots of cathedrals to self-indulgent consumerism? We want to keep empty vehicles warm for our privileged backsides, and we don't want to pay the cost!