It was one of the most astonishing displays of persuasion I have ever seen. In the audience, a group of Midwestern agribusiness types, who by profession should have been well attuned to climate change, but by culture were deeply sceptical. On the stage, a Germanic gentleman from one of the great Alpine reinsurance companies, presenting a meticulous analysis of how changes in rainfall and temperature were reshaping crop insurance premiums. The first, slightly awestruck question: “So . . . you think this climate change thing is real?”

It was a testament to the persuasive power of an apolitical nerd. The audience realised that this insurance analyst had no interest in the Woke Dems — he was just describing the world as he saw it. But it was also a window into the way that our views about the world shape financial markets for risk, and financial markets for risk shape our views about the world.

There are two venerable insurance industries, the French economist Michel Albert once explained. One has its roots in Alpine pastures, where Swiss villagers agreed to help each other out if one farmer’s cow died. The other was born in Edward Lloyd’s coffee house in 17th-century London, where sailors and shipowners would gather to gamble on which ships would sink and which would return safely to port.