A new report has revealed in clear terms that the majority Australians accept the evidence on human-caused climate change.
A poll of 1,000 people conducted by Essential Media showed that 60 percent of people agree that "climate change his happening and is caused by human activity" -- up six points from the start of the Australian summer and the highest percentage since 2009.
So, why the upswing?
"The extreme weather definitely has something to do with it," Essential Media Communications director Peter Lewis told The Huffington Post Australia.
Australia has always had extreme droughts and heatwaves. But this summer's remarkable run of heat in eastern Australia -- detailed in a special Bureau of Meteorology statement issued Wednesday -- is part of a trend.
We're having more extreme heatwaves more often, and as climatologists have told The Huffington Post Australia before, it's because entire weather patterns appear to be changing. In other words, Australia is not just hotter. It's more prone to the sort of weather systems that bring hot weather.
On that note, it's worth pointing out that 54 percent of Australians accepted the hypothesis of human-caused climate change before this absolute stinker of a summer. We're up 6 percent in two months. Nothing like a little reality bomb in your own backyard to make us reconsider.
If the vocal minority in the halls of power who reject climate change science will dislike the above numbers, they'll enjoy the figures on renewable energy even less. Check it.
Despite sustained Coalition attacks on renewables in recent week -- and that big black lump of coal which really put the COAL into Coalition -- the vast majority of Australians see renewable energy as a solution, rather than a threat.
That's even true for people who vote for the Coalition -- just a quarter of whom are sold on the whole "renewables caused the blackouts" argument.
Where does all of this leave the government's attack on renewables? Between a lump of coal and a hot place, that's where. Why? Because of this graph.
ALSO ON HUFFPOST AUSTRALIA