Warm up
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- What industry do you work in and what is your role?
- What are your responses in your role / position?
- Can you describe to the function of your workplace / company?
- How many departments, how many offices. National or International?
- What are the minimum requirements for employment ie Education or Experience?
- How many opportunities are there to ‘move up the ladder’?
- What is the process for changing job roles ie Interview? Test?
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- Current projects? Deadlines? Opportunities?
- Anything of interest happening?
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1. The UK has provisionally recorded its highest ever temperature on Tuesday: 40.2°C.It was the first time the UK recorded a temperature over 40°C per the Met Office, the official weather organization in Britain. The reading was taken around London’s Heathrow Airport just before 1 p.m. local time. Temperatures were forecast to rise further still through Tuesday afternoon. The previous record was 38.7°C, from 2019. It was beaten Tuesday by a slew of readings in southern England, The record came on the second day of extreme heat, and followed the hottest-ever night in Britain. It cited a minimum temperature of 25.8°C in Kenly on the outskirts of London, though warned the reading may later be revised.
2. The fire service in London faced its busiest day since the second world war on Tuesday as fires raged throughout the UK amid brutal temperatures.Temperatures dropped dramatically on Wednesday, but further travel disruption was expected as repairs were carried out on road and rail networks and at airports. Heavy showers and thunderstorms were predicted to hit parts of the country, potentially causing localised flooding.
3. The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, warned Londoners not to have BBQs and to take care with bottles in public areas, where grass remains tinder-dry after temperatures topped 40C in the UK for the first time. The sun shining through glass bottles can create heat and cause a fire.
What’s the most extreme weather you’ve experienced in Japan and abroad, how did you cope with it?
4. Khan said the fire service would usually expect 500 calls on a busy day, but had received more than 2,600 calls on Tuesday, when more than a dozen fires were raging at the same time.Fire brigades in London, Leicestershire and South Yorkshire declared major incidents on Tuesday, as fires destroyed business, houses, schools and churches.
5. Khan said he spoke on Wednesday morning to the fire commissioner, who expressed concern about the potential for further fires. Asked if the need to get net zero by 2050 was in danger of being ignored, Khan said it “beggared belief” that global heating was not being spoken about more prominently by the Conservative leadership candidates. “Look, it’s unarguable now that the weather we’ve faced in our city and in our country over the last few days is a direct consequence of climate change,” he said. “We should be dealing with the consequences of climate change adaptations of our cities and country, public transport homes and so forth, but also dealing with the causes of climate change as well.”
6. Sixteen firefighters were injured tackling blazes in the capital on the hottest day of the year, with two admitted to hospital, according to the London fire brigade’s assistant commissioner, Jonathan Smith. Smith told Times Radio: “The conditions that our firefighters were operating in were unprecedented – operating in 40C heat, needing to drag significant amount of hose across fields, making sure we were rescuing people where we needed to.”
How is Japan dealing with climate change? Is it a major talking point amongst politicians? What is being said?
7. Simon Clarke, the chief secretary to the Treasury, told Sky News that the fires were a “warning sign” about the impact of climate change. “This is a reminder today I think of the importance of tackling climate change. This is a remarkable, unprecedented event and something which obviously, because people have been saying, we are not used to seeing in this country,” he said.
8. “What we’ve seen in recent days is not normal and it is a warning sign.” Dozens of trains were cancelled or delayed across England on Wednesday morning because of problems caused by the extreme heat. Record temperatures caused damage to overhead wires, tracks and signalling systems. National Rail told customers to check before setting off on their journeys and to travel only if absolutely necessary as tracks and overhead wires were repaired.
What do you think the UK can do in the future to better prepare or prevent these conditions?
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