You would never guess it from the US election. But for the third year running the world is on course to exceed a record temperature in 2016 — having suffered the hottest July in history last month. People are right to worry their children may not have it as good as they did. Yet the changing planet plays little role in their foreboding. By any barometer, US politics has hit extreme weather in 2016, yet global warming ranks near the bottom on the list of voter concerns. Illegal immigration, on the other hand, is near the top, even though net inflows came to a halt five years ago. Is democracy on course to duck the biggest challenge of our age?
In the near future it surely will. It would be simplistic to lay all the blame on Donald Trump. The Republican nominee dismisses man-made global warming as a hoax concocted by China to increase its trade surplus with the US. He has also done more than any figure to demonise Hispanic immigrants.
Yet voter concerns would probably be little different if Mr Trump had not entered politics at all. Most of us encounter life through our day-to-day problems. Politics, like charity, begins at home. It is natural to worry more about your job security, or your family’s healthcare, than about the grander themes of our time. Questions of war and peace rarely alter US elections. Why should meteorology?