The UK’s heatwave was not a wake-up call – it was a funeral bell

It’s a funeral for all hopes of protecting huge swathes of our remaining natural world from obliteration, writes Donnachadh McCarthy

And even deeper grief for the many species in the wider natural world (PA)

The UK’s recent 40C extreme heatwave was not a wake-up call, it was a funeral call. The wake-up calls have all long passed and we ignored them. It’s a funeral for all hopes of avoiding climate devastation and protecting huge swathes of our remaining natural world from obliteration.

The only remaining question now is whether we will continue racing towards complete destruction of our climate and the natural world, or finally decarbonise as fast as possible.

On the first of the worst two blistering days, I was at a rewilding course organised by Embercombe and Wildwise at Derek Gow’s extraordinary rewilding farm in Dorset.