Now, look, there's been a lot of talk lately about heat.

Ever since the so-called National Climate Risk Assessment was released on Monday, I think all we've heard a catastrophic, Armageddon like descriptions of uninhabitable regions and mass heat related deaths because of global warming.

And there was Chris Bowen on Monday warning the public that health risks will become more pronounced with a significant potential for loss of life unless we turn down the dial and keep temperature rises below 1.5 degrees.

Now, in case you didn't quite get the picture, the report warned that if Australia gets to three degrees warming above pre-industrial levels, Sydney will witness a spike in heat related deaths of 444%, 312% in Perth, even Launceston, with an additional 146%.

In other words, nowhere will be spared.

One commentator even likening the potential outcome in the country's north to the movie mad Max.

Now look, I've got no idea, no idea as to the veracity of all of these claims, I suspect there's more than just a whiff of sensationalism to some of them.

A bit of shock and awe, you know, to drive the message home.

But you see too much doom and gloom and people start to turn off.

They either suspect they're being treated to a dose of hyperbole or it's just too confronting.

So they curl up into their bubble and they look the other way.

In other words, the climate community has to be careful not to overegg the pudding.

And as Bjorn Lomborg has long said, they have to accompany these sorts of reports with a strong dose of hope, optimism and, dare I say it, realism.

That realism, in the form of acknowledging that whatever Australia does will be symbolic.

At best, it'll be a gesture to the world, rather than some crucial contribution to altering the global output of man made carbon dioxide.

Optimistic in the sense that mankind has always overcome its biggest challenges and done so through pragmatic evolution rather than ideological revolution.

And hopeful by pointing out that as the energy debate rages on, the world is already witnessing a number of innovative mitigation techniques, including, might I add, the renaissance of nuclear technology?

We owe it to the children at the very least, suffering, as many of them clearly are, with the mental torment of constant.

The world is nigh messaging that the sun will come up tomorrow.

And even if it is a little warmer than average, that man will find a way not just to survive, but to actually thrive.

However, what I find particularly staggering is how the climate wars, as they're called, continue to destroy political career after political career.

I mean, think about it.

Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, perhaps even John Howard, they all met their Waterloo because of or in part from their response to climate change.

Overseas the story is the same.

Leader after leader crushed under the weight of internal party brawling over the issue, or voter resentment at either too little or too fast a policy response.

And despite the rhetoric here on Monday, the trend in many jurisdictions abroad is actually one of reversing the zealotry with which they've previously gone about reorienting the energy grid.

The motor fleet and the industrial base.

EV mandates are being wound back.

Fossil fuels are finding willing buyers everywhere.

Net zero targets are becoming less ambitious.

I mean, I guess it's what happens when costly public ambition collides with fixed, lean household budgets.

The public seem to be constantly whipsawing between wanting to do more on global warming and then retreating when the bill arrives in the mail.

Government redistribution on capital can buy a certain amount of acquiescence, but only for so long.

The cold, hard truth is this.

The Bowen blueprint for a renewable centric grid is prohibitively expensive and, even if realised, may not actually work.

Engineeringly speaking.

Make no mistake, it is this country's greatest and costliest policy gamble ever.

Ever.

But on the other side, the coalition are yet to make up their mind what to do, what they believe, what they stand for.

Some, of course, want net zero by 2050.

Others don't.

There's rumbles that a few will spit the dummy if net zero isn't dropped.

I mean, I get the feeling Sussan Ley really doesn't know where to land.

Torn between the clear teal preference for an accelerated rollout of renewables, albeit in someone else's electorate and the National's partiality for fossil fuel where nuclear could fit in?

Well, that remains an open question.

Indeed, when the free market might just be allowed to decide what's most efficient for Australia.

Well, that seems to be completely lost on all sides as they scurry about picking winners and putting up roadblocks to technologies that their constituents don't like.

I mean, the government's 2035 emissions target will be announced in the coming days, early next week, I think.

Suzanne Leigh's response to it could either make or break her leadership.

But whilst the focus is on rising temperatures, just indulge me, just for a moment as I pivot to something unrelated to the IPCC yet of concern to me, and that's the rising temperature of public discourse.

Now, put simply, from Britain to the US, Europe to Australia, it seems like a greater number of people are losing the art of civility in public debate, turning instead to violence, extremism and absolutism.

Now, we touched on this last week in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and then all of those who celebrated his killing.

But then, of course, over the weekend, those extraordinary scenes in London where well over 100,000, well over 100,000 marched in the so-called Unite the Kingdom rally organised by that fellow Tommy Robinson.

Now, I'm told police were physically and verbally abused by many.

There were reports of flares, bottles being thrown, horses hit kicks and punches being exchanged.

And in such a heated, volatile environment, Elon Musk's video link message where he said and I quote, the left is the party of murder and celebrating murder.

That's who we're dealing with here.

End quote.

Well, surely that didn't help.

I mean, the mean, the British Labour Party may well be pro-immigration, but they're not actively working to have British subjects murdered.

Truth be told, in Britain it was the right, the conservatives, that really opened the floodgates and lost control of the borders.

It's like the Wall Street Journal said in its editorial last Friday.

Too many now paint the other side of politics not merely as wrong or indeed, profoundly wrong, but rather a force hell bent on the destruction of the country as saboteurs or even enemy agents.

I mean, this is what I mean about the rhetorical dial being ratcheted up to 11, and we've seen it here over the Palestine stuff.

But more often than not, it's the vexed issue of immigration that brings out the worst.

And as I've often said, ignorant mainstream parties are largely to blame with their uni party policy in favour of mass migration.

Ignoring the genuine concerns of Middle Australia the world over.

Joe and Jane Average are being drawn to extreme, even dangerous voices from a sense of being ignored by the centrist political establishment.

An internet connection only exacerbates it and incubates it.

And as more and more gets sucked into that unsophisticated vortex, the caliber of public debate only deteriorates further.

Fringe figures somehow morph into community leaders and societies.

Ties that bind begin to fray.

Now, sure, the political establishment has a duty to listen to the voters and to keep society safe, and if they fail, they should be voted out.

But equally, the voter has a duty to keep the debate civil.

Now, not wanting to sound too Jerry's final thought here, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks the world could do with a Bex and a good lie down before things get really ugly.

Again, that's not to say we should just stay quiet in the face of poor decisions, or stay at home when the other side hits the streets in protest.

But the way we go about expressing our viewpoints matters.

The language we use matters.

And it seems to me that both the left and the right are now more interested in the personal rather than the policy.

Believe me, that's a road paved with anything but good intentions.