For a Rural Fire Service volunteer, Abbott's continued downplaying of climate change is surprising. The RFS faces a perilous summer yet again and it points the finger of blame in part to the changing climate - year on year heat records broken, an ongoing drought, warmer than average winters.

It's surprising, too, that anyone is actually still listening to Tony Abbott. When his face and comments popped up in the news media this week, social media lit up with people asking why he was given any airtime at all.

Climate change and its effects were visible from space this week as Hurricane Dorian devastated the Bahamas, hanging around like a destructive, unwelcome house guest (remind you of someone?) before moving on to menace the east coast of the United States. Photos from the International Space Station showed the vast storm as it approached. If it was terrifying from that perspective imagine how it looked from the ground.

Not even a week into spring, fire danger warnings are being sounded across large swathes of NSW as the temperature climbs steeply.

Last week, Bega Vally Shire council joined a growing band of other local governments, including Wollongong, to declare a climate emergency.

In the same week, teenage Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg arrived in New York, having sailed across the North Atlantic, and addressed a rally outside UN headquarters.

Thunberg has faced a concerted attack by conservative climate sceptics, including Andrew Bolt who, like Abbott, resorted to religious analogy in a clumsy effort to put the 18-year-old down.

What these old men appear not to realise is that people like Greta Thunberg are speaking up now because their future, which will be upon them long after the dinosaurs in suits have gone, is at stake.

What the old men appear to be most rattled by is the traction young people are gaining when calling for serious action on climate change. At 18, Thunberg has a higher profile, a bigger audience, than Tony Abbott or Andrew Bolt could ever hope for.