‘If we put anyone on trial for ecocide,’ says Regan, ‘it will be the oil barons and politicians and corporate warlords. Not our own sisters.’ ‘I’m sorry,’ says Bronte. ‘But like, I still think maybe there should be some consequences for Mariam, here? She can’t just cause an ecological disaster and then rejoin the movement as if nothing happened.’

It is precisely as a result of my concerns about these topics and my familiarity as a science writer with the reality of anthropogenic global warming that I am frustrated with what I argue are a series of romantic proposals from the green left that at best do very little to deal with the issue and at worst are counterproductive. Climate change is