I have been very sad in the last week or so as the news of the environmental devastation and its impact on human life in Nepal has steadily infiltrated our attention. The causes of that disaster are many but overwhelmingly point to the impact of climate change on the Himalayan permafrost and glacial lakes, which, in turn, is undermining the water and food security of mostly materially poor communities. But there is also the impact of inequality which sees the least advantaged members of those communities with inadequate housing and clustered, instead, in flimsy huts and dwellings along river banks that make them the most vulnerable when these disasters occur. Over the weekend, a major political event occurred in the state of Western Australia, where the far Right loony party, One Nation scored a significant political victory in the by election and signalled that both major parties (Liberal and Labour) are now in danger of being swept away by this far Right push, which is mimicking the trends across the globe. The relevance of between the two seemingly disparate events is that the One Nation leadership spoke at a rally yesterday (August 30, 2026) in Victoria and promised that if elected to federal government at the next election they will ramp up investment in coal power and abandon renewable energy and carbon emissions targets and expand mining (Source). I have been researching why the Right is leading the charge on climate denialism and why low income people are being increasingly attracted to their ideas that run counter to the well established scientific evidence and empirical realities that unfold on a regular basis that support the contentions of the scientists. The story that unfolds also bears on why mainstream macroeconomic fictions continue to dominate our thinking about policy despite the massive harm their implementation does to the well-being of societies. This is an on-going theme that I am working on.