My regular paper is The Guardian, somewhat under sufferance ever since my previous favourite The Independent started to shrink in size and quality about a decade ago. One of the things that bugs me about The Grauniad is its insistence on turning to novelists for wisdom on the big issues of the day whether terrorism, migration or climate change. Why listen to experienced diplomats, politicians, soldiers, scientists or engineers when you can ask Hilary Mantel what she thinks?

And lo, we get an article about Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh complaining that the arts, along with everybody else, haven’t addressed climate change enough. The article concludes:

Worryingly, Ghosh has few solutions to offer. “I am not sure there are solutions. The problem is of such a scale that we are dwarfed by it,” he said.

Maybe it’s just me, but it doesn’t worry me much at all that a novelist doesn’t know how to solve climate change. We have plenty of people who know how to do that. They’re beavering away at making it happen quickly enough while Mr Ghosh tours India in a self-appointed role as a prophet of doom.

As the second most populated country in the world, and developing fast, India is currently pivotal to the whole battle for climate change. The recent G20 communiqué on the Paris Agreement was diluted by the Indian Government worried about economic impacts. If the arts really can deliver change, it will have persuade the country’s leadership that tackling climate change will also deliver economic and social benefits, if they do it right. That’s going to take a positive vision from Ghosh and his colleagues.