When a huge wildfire, known locally as The Beast, tore through northeast Alberta this May, driving out the entire population of more than 100,000 from the oil-sands boom-town of Fort McMurray, it also set in motion a campaign of enforced silence in Canada.

Since the disaster, the media and the political class have point-blank refused to link the Fort McMurray disaster to the climate degradation that has increased the likelihood of huge wildfires in the tinder-dry boreal forest.