Climate chaos in the UK brings environment issues home
It's not the sort of weather we've come to expect in late June, and while Glastonbury proved to be the mudbath that so many had feared, far more serious flooding has been taking place elsewhere in Britain.
So far, four people have lost their lives and hundreds have been evacuated from their homes in Sheffield, Nottingham, Leeds, Rotherham, Leeds, and Shropshire, where up to four inches of rain fell on Monday. While many hope to return home after a second night in temporary accommodation, fears are rising for more flooding later in the week, as the Met Office has warned that the weather will remain unsettled, with another inch of rain expected to fall across the midlands and southern England on Thursday.
This isn't the first time freak weather has been seen in the UK, where the 'Great Storm' of October 1987 saw hurricane force winds of up to 110mph hit parts of the country. But the rise in unseasonal weather like we are witnessing now, and of loss of predictable seasons altogether is becoming ever more apparent.
Noone can say for certain if the flooding is a direct result of climate change, but experts have said the kind of freak weather we've seen this month is likely to become more frequent as temperatures rise.
What thoughts come into your head when you see this sort of weather anomaly happening close to home? Does this prove to you that climate change is alive, well, and at work devastating the world around us?
