“When Copernicus figured out the the universe didn’t revolve around the Earth, it took about 40-50 years to convince the scientists,” said Professor Sherwood, who studies atmospheric processes within the University of New South Wales’s Climate Change Research Centre.

“We’re about 40-50 years into this problem, and we’ve recently converged within the science community.”

“But then it took another 150-200 years to convince the public that the sun didn’t revolve around the Earth. I’m hoping that this is going to happen a lot faster on this issue, but I’m resigned to the fact that it’s not going to happen particularly quickly.”

“The most frustrating thing as a scientist is that most people working on this topic think this is for real. But the public thinks there are scientists on both sides of equal stature, and that’s just wrong.”

Meanwhile, Professor Sherwood said, the willingness of the public and some politicians to believe that most of the world’s climate scientists are wrong, if not manipulating facts for political ends, “is affecting many of us”.

“It’s demoralising. It pushes your morale down a bit. But for me, remembering that other people in other fields have been through this before makes me feel better.”

Apart from continuing to point out the scientific facts, Professor Sherwood believes the only other strategy that the climate science community can use is to point out that certain groups have a vested interest in denying the issue, and “how that is likely to be contaminating the public debate”.

“We’ve been through this many times before with other problems—ozone depletion, smoking and cancer, lead, overfishing. There are many instances where the science community has come out with some kind of warning, and in many cases the policy makers did not act—and in every case that I know of the scientists were right.”