“The Earth is dying”, “the world is on fire”, we’re undergoing an “environmental extinction”: just three of the sentiments which have been expressed by today’s climate “strikers” and which, unlike even moderate expressions of scepticism on matters of climate science, seem to escape without challenge.

While it is tempting to think of today’s climate “strike” by schoolchildren around the world as a case of truants finding an ethical excuse to skip lessons, I think many are acting for genuine reasons: they are traumatised.