I do believe I've had enough

Warning: "When I was a boy" rant from old fart follows.

Time was when conservatism and conservation of resources went hand in hand. In the US, that tendency was probably fueled by guilt over the rapacity of the robber barons on the part of their children and grandchildren. It was one of the few behaviours that made conservatism tolerable.

But no more. If we are to judge by such childishness as "carbon belch day," any form of personal responsibility that involves the environment is out. Rapacity, gluttony and denial of consequences are in amongst those who profess conservatism.

I accept only that unholy trio as excuses for the obstinate denial of climate change, and human involvement in it. The spectacular stupidity of it is that the attitude is much the same as that of the producers of pre-petroleum fuels and lubricants, chiefly lard and whale oil. While the first petroleum producers were applying innovation to provide plentiful, cheap alternative energy, the entrenched interests sat on their hands and watched their monopolies slip away in a decade. Innovation, that little god of capitalism, is on the side of those who are taking on climate change with solutions, not excuses, not witless refusal to accept reality.

The lard-assed whiners may whine all they want, but they are on the sidelines now. The game is for people who are acting and solving and innovating. Too many solutions? Of course there are: that's what a period of innovation is all about. The solutions with staying power will not involve the deniers at all. Their world will resemble the rotting waterfronts of whaling ports in the 1870s, filled with rotting minds that could not accept change.