It's a special moment when the US senate take it upon themselves to vote on whether climate change is real. And by 'real' they mean whether it is actually, ya know, a 'thing'. We're not talking about whether climates change from coast to coast or continent to continents (they’ve accepted that they do) but whether that little thing called 'global warming' impacts on our world climate.

I picture the climate change unbelievers in Congress like the bad guys in Miracle on 34th Street trying to disprove Santa Claus. The difference being that Santa Claus really doesn't exist (sorry, kids) and climate change definitely does exist (again, sorry kids). In our version, the well-dressed gentlemanly old chap who insists that he's the one who keeps leaving special gifts, is represented by Climate Change. The good guy lawyer and the painfully cute little girl are played here by Scientists and Action Groups: gallantly defending the fact that we must attend to Climate Change and acknowledge its presence if we're ever going to prevent live comfortably alongside it. The bad guys are the politicians who will try to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that we definitely shouldn't believe in all this namby-pamby witchcraft. And – as usual - the prosecution are much better funded than the defence.

Living in Oxford, we're pretty buffered from any freakish weather extremities. Of course, I write this immediately before our annual deluge is expected where traffic is halted and Oxford turns into a half-baked Atlantis. Note to self: buy some wellies this year. But generally, we in the UK are lucky – safely cocooned in our ignorance to the havoc climate change is increasingly wreaking. This does give the good lawyer and his team a distinct disadvantage as they desperately tell us that there is a Climate Change and this is it. One Oxford-based organisation, COIN (Climate Outreach and Information Network) conducted research to understand why the message about climate change isn't getting through. COIN's purpose is to research how to best communicate about climate change and motivate change amongst the rest of us.

Essentially, they're the good lawyer convincing us that this climate change magic isn't magic at all but an actual problem that we should actually care about. The organisation conducted narrative workshops and found that people can't care too much about the abstract or larger issues: we care about what's nearest and dearest to it and we need to realise that the things we love are genuinely at risk. We will fight for the things we love : to maintain a park we live near, to protect our homes but beyond that…well, we just can’t believe it.

The great thing about the Senate vote on the existence of climate change is that it's an attempt to force the Republicans – some of whom infamously deny its existence for their own political and financial gains – to prove that climate change is not real – or at least not related in any way to anything we humans may have done.

I'm as guilty as the next person for forgetting that we should care. But forget about the big things : the thousands of climate refugees who will be forced to leave the homes that they love and be left desolate. Forget about the ice-caps. The animals. The best thing is to remember the small things every day that you would miss if adverse weather stole them from you. The football pitch your son could no longer play on. The winter walk along the canal which may soon be a marathon swim. Your living room carpet.

Don't be the bad guys in Miracle on 34th Street. There is a climate change and it is here. And we must act.

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