Spain and Portugal’s beleaguered rural areas (and the people living in them) have had a miserable summer. A depressing 1.2 million acres have been incinerated in recent wildfires across the Iberian Peninsula – and, wouldn’t you know, early research suggests that climate change has made the chances of such devastating conflagrations 40 times more likely. Yet another triumph!

The World Weather Attribution network’s study notes that more than 1% of the peninsula’s surface area has burned in 2025, with the fires occurring during a 16-day heatwave, the most intense since records began.

Clair Barnes, a climate scientist and co-author of the study, said: “The sheer size of these fires has been astonishing. Hotter, drier and more flammable conditions are becoming more severe with climate change and are giving rise to fires of unprecedented intensity.”

But our Iberian cousins can’t hog all the glory: England and Wales have set a new record for wildfires, with nearly 1,000 recorded so far this year – naturally: the Met Office has also confirmed that 2025’s fiery summer is the UK’s hottest on record. Well done, everybody!

Reacting to this dire situation, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch quickly formulated a plan in her fast-moving mind and announced plans to remove all net zero requirements on oil and gas companies drilling in the North Sea if her party is re-elected at some point in the future, adding that she was interested in “maximising extraction” of “all our oil and gas out of the North Sea”.

Meanwhile, Derbyshire County Council, which is currently under the command of the far-right Reform party, has announced that the previous regime’s aims to tackle the causes and impact of climate change have been abolished. Excellent timing.

Across the Atlantic, the world’s most popular podcast host, Joe Rogan, has been having fun telling his enormous audience of desperate strugglers that a recent study actually reveals that the planet is cooling down! This despite the fact that the research in question states the opposite. But who gives a Brexit about that bit?

It’s getting hotter and hotter; virtually everything that’s been modelled over the last 50 years has come to pass; and these people are STILL trying to claim that down is up, black is white, they’re the smart, honest ones and the scientists are the deceitful, stupid ones.

Masochists? Idiots? Idiot masochists? Whatever they are, they appear to be in the ascendancy, so, once again, well done, everybody!

Finally, back to Reform. The far-right party’s conference is being held in Birmingham this weekend, where big boss Nigel Farage, fresh from trying to encourage a foreign power to interfere in the UK’s domestic affairs, will address his adoring followers. And, of course, there’s plenty of room for fossil fuel fans, including:

• The Heartland Institute, which believes anthropogenic climate change is a “delusion”
• Net Zero Watch, which reckons carbon dioxide has been “mercilessly demonised”, presumably by supporters of rival gases
• Together, an anti-vaccine conspiracy theory group that found time in its busy schedule fighting inoculations to launch a campaign to get the UK’s 2050 net zero emissions target dissolved.

Sounds like it’ll be a fun weekend. Pass the cyanide.

Anyhow, I gathered these grisly details from international journalism organisation DeSmog, and you can read their full account of the Reform rally here, which has the added bonus of having been written by a decent journalist.