This weekend's summery warmth should remind us there is a life outside the darkness of politics and epidemic.
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The past year has been dominated by two big themes: the turmoil of our ally, the United States of America, and the turmoil wreaked on our own society (and indeed on everyone else's society) by the wretched virus.
It would be easy for these two immense matters to overshadow another important issue, and that is the relentless warming of the planet.
Of course, the recent cool spell has absolutely no implication for the debate over global warming. That debate is, or ought to be, over. The cool summer comes courtesy of La Nina, a periodic interaction of warm and cool parts of the Pacific Ocean and is independent of relentlessly rising temperatures.
All the science says global warming is happening and we urgently need to stop it happening. It is a real and present danger.
Our hope is a political change may prompt progress towards addressing climate change.
President Trump's views on climate change were not clear.
At various times, he called it "mythical", "non-existent", or "an expensive hoax". But he has also described it as a "serious subject" that is "very important to me".
But actions speak louder than words and one of his first acts in the White House was to announce the United States would pull out of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation. The withdrawal finally took place in November.
Refreshingly, soon-to-be President Joe Biden is not a sceptic. One of the first things he did after his election was to start picking the people to draft what he called an "ambitious plan" to tackle climate change.
"We're in a crisis," he said. "Just like we need to be a unified nation to respond to COVID-19, we need a unified national response to climate change."
He is right - but words are easy.
Action may demand sacrifice. It will demand hard choices - like whether to rely on low-emission nuclear power. It may demand persuading people through taxes to make the right choice of electricity.
It demands clear thought, based on science and economics - in Australia as well as America.