Is this the year climate change became real for people of the Midlands? I mean climate change is real, I've spent a 25-year career telling people it is real and documenting its impact on the region: Floods, dry spells, heatwaves and more. So why for many people does this year feel different - like climate change is finally "here" ?
Well in 2026, things have reached some sort of tipping point where we can start to see really obvious signs of change that had a huge impact on at least some of us. A winter of endless rain, not just wet but never ending. Then the rain stopped and we were hurtling into drought.
Then wave after wave of what felt like boiling heat. We have had wildfires this year because things have been so dry for so long, the hot air has just sucked the moisture out of the landscape. It leaves vegetation dead, dry and needing just a small spark to erupt into flame.
On Cannock Chase, I spent the day with Staffordshire County Council rangers, as they showed me around the black, scorched earth left behind after the fires that took place there. I saw pictures of dead adders along with cracked and burnt eggs belonging to ground-nesting birds. It is not just wildlife affected by them - the ash from the fire is changing the chemistry of the soil itself.
It is much more nutrient-rich and that is bad news for this rare lowland heathland, where the traditional plants prefer poorer quality soil. Already green shoots of bracken are bursting through the blackened earth and that will crowd out the traditional heather, bilberry and cowberry. The Met Office has a list of things climate change will make worse, including "increased risk of fires" but it also says the "habitable region of pests expands".
That is exactly what our farmers are seeing this year. Bluetongue is an awful disease affecting cattle and sheep, leading to the death of lambs and calves. It is carried by infected midges and as the climate has warmed the region, infected midges have expanded north from Europe to now include the Midlands.
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