As continuing storms and heavy rainfall across the UK last
night left 80,000 homes without power, the UK’s Met Office has
issued a rare red warning for north west England and Wales. A UK
army chief has branded the situation facing many parts of the
country “an unparalleled disaster”, reports the Financial Times. The Telegraphreports on the damage
and transport chaos around the country.

After decades of setbacks, scientists have made a “small but
crucial step along the road to harnessing fusion power”, reports
the Guardian. Scientists in California produced more energy from
fusing nuclei than they put in, but not more than the 192 lasers
that are needed to start the reaction. That’s the step needed to
make nuclear fusion a viable fuel source, and scientists say it’s
likely to still be a long way off.

The European Commission has expressed concern that some of
the UK’s first contracts for difference – offered to renewable
energy generators while the energy bill was going through the
legislative process – may not be legal.

The Church of England is willing to withdraw financial
support from companies that fail to do enough to fight the ‘great
demon’ of climate change, reports the Guardian. Canon Giles Goddard
of Southwark said the Church needed to “align the mission of the
church with its investment arm and with the life of the
parishes”.

Dr Chris Cornelius, the founder of shale gas firm Cuadrilla,
has been awarded three licences to frack in the Irish Sea, reports
the BBC. Cornelius says there’s “no reason” we can’t develop these
resources offshore but Oxford economist Professor Dieter Helm told
the BBCs Today Programme offshore shale gas is unlikely to be
commercially viable in the near future.

BBC science editor David Shukman explains that a “global
chain reaction” of weather systems could be to blame for the recent
exceptional weather in the UK. This morning, the BBC’s
Today Programmefeatured a head-to-head
debate about climate change’s role in the recent weather between
Professor Sir Brian Hoskins, director of the Grantham Institute for
Climate Change at Imperial University, and Nigel Lawson of the
skeptic campaign group, the Global Warming Policy
Foundation.

With swathes of the country underwater and the UK’s Met
Office warning we can expect more with climate change, it’s no
longer defensible for the Prime Minister to keep Owen Paterson on
as environment secretary, argues the Huffington Post. Paterson has
previously suggested “we should just accept the climate has always
changed” and “the temperature has not changed in the last seventeen
years”.

George Marshall, director of the Climate Outreach
Information Network, discusses public attitudes to the flooding.
Marshall says, “there seems to be plenty of conjecture about who to
blame for the floods – the Environment Agency, budget cuts, river
conservation, property developers – but never, it seems, our own
carbon pollution … This collective silence may be the biggest
challenge of all.”

Global fashion icon Vivienne Westwood is prioritising
quality over quality in her new clothes ranges. The fashion
designer intends to limit the growth of her fashion empire, saying
“if everyone wore just a few beautiful things, there would not be
such a climate change problem”.

Professor Nigel Arnell, director of the Walker Institute for
Climate System Research at the University of Reading, takes a look
at the factors influencing future flood risk in the UK. Alongside
increasing exposure to extreme weather as populations rise and
economies grow, we need to think deeply about how to manage our
flood risk as the climate changes, says Arnell.

Joe Smith, senior lecturer at the Open University, offers to
sit UKIP leader Nigel Farage down and explain the fundamentals of
human-caused climate change and the link to extreme weather. This
comes after Farage admitted to journalist whilst knee-deep in flood
water, “I have no idea whether CO2 emissions are contributing to
climate change.”

Attributing changes in global biodiversity to different
driving forces is tricky and much research ignores the complexity,
according to a new paper. The researcher take a fresh look at how
climate change interacts with land use change to decrease
biodiversity.