Welcome to your semi-regular horror show, picking through the carnage unleashed by our collective propensity for releasing carbon and methane into our delicate, increasingly occluded atmosphere. But read on! There might be some good news!

Well, this isn’t a great start. A beauty spot in the oft-troubled African state of Kenya is being swallowed by the sea.

A man’s hotel has been deluged by the rising tides. Robert Macri first noticed something was up in 2014. “The ocean changed steadily and started encroaching the hotel. The last standing cottage was gulped by the sea in 2019, marking the end of my glorious hotel,” he told the BBC.

And a local administrator reckons nearly 6.2 miles of former terra firma now lies below the waves. Said he: “It’s just a matter of time before the whole region goes under water.”

Engage with the full dismalness here.

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Good news bit. Our brand new government appears to be showing willing to respond responsibly to the climate crisis, if its latest press release is to be believed.

Energy secretary Ed Miliband has announced the “largest-ever budget for delivering new homegrown clean energy projects in the UK”, with this year’s renewable energy auction being increased by £500 million to over £1.5 billion.

The government says the “funding will accelerate the delivery of clean, cheap, low-carbon electricity to families and businesses, generated by renewable energy technologies such as wind turbines and solar panels”.

In a statement, Ed Miliband, quite correctly stuck the boot into the previous regime, which, like virtually everything else it touched, managed to make a whole set of pig’s ears of its own green policies: “Last year’s auction round was a catastrophe, with zero offshore wind secured, and delaying our move away from expensive fossil fuels to energy independence.

“Instead, we are backing industry to build in Britain, with this year’s auction getting its biggest budget yet. This will restore the UK as a global leader for green technologies and deliver the infrastructure we need to boost our energy independence, protect billpayers, and become a clean energy superpower.”

Clean energy superpower? That sounds awesome. Let’s hope it’s true, and that we don’t end up with a another round of criminal incompetence and borderline insane negligence.

You can read the government’s full and very long press release here.

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More horrible news. Scientists sticking their noses and thermometers into the Great Barrier Reef have discovered that temperatures in that aquatic arcadia are the highest for 400 years.

Is that a problem, though? It’s quite warm there, anyway, isn’t it? Lead researcher Dr Benjamin Henley concludes: “Unfortunately, this is terrible news for the reef.” Oh dear.

Depressed? Go and read the Telegraph which will no doubt have at least five obviously extremely science-literate hacks on hand to speculate that thermometers didn’t even exist 400 years ago, probably, and so on.

Anyhow. Here’s the story.

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Meanwhile, as coastal Kenyans despair as their homeland vanishes below the brine, the beleaguered Greeks are facing yet another season of raging infernos.

The fires have come extremely close to the capital, Athens, with many properties destroyed in the suburbs. 100,000 acres have been incinerated.

Vassilis Kikilias, minister for Climate Crisis and Civil Protection, said: “This is all fine. We like it. Climate change is a hoax. Alison Pearson and Laurence Fox told us.”

No, he didn’t. He actually said: “We faced a level-five fire risk with winds of 7-8 Beaufort, prolonged drought, and a rugged area with these characteristics – mountains, forests, and scattered homes.”

Full story here.

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Nice news. Rain forests could be returning to Wales, in Pembrokeshire to be precise, where a restoration project is currently being mooted.

According to the good folk at the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales, only 1% of our world (Earth) has the right conditions to sustain such forests, and Pembrokeshire is part of that exclusive club.

Conservation officer Adam Dawson is stoked: “Creating rainforests creates sponges to soak water up.

“So, you’re slowing down the surge flows that otherwise come down into the residential and urbanised areas.”

Back in the day, most of the UK was covered in forests. But then mankind developed the axe and, later, an inexorable greed that combined spelled the end for vast, vast tracts of the eco-system. But we did get lots of golf courses out of it. Which is great if you like golf. Which I don’t.

Anyway, here’s the story.