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This year, Britain has had its driest start to the year in just over 80 years. This seems hard to believe, especially for those living in the Lake District who experienced devastating floods at the beginning of the year, which saw bridges swept away and communities cut off from the rest of the UK.

However, although we all enjoying the hot summer weather at the moment, the reservoirs across the Lake District and the Pennines are below average for the time of year. These reservoirs are the core of the water supply to the North West of England and this shortage could lead to a drought order being brought in for the remainder of the dry weather.

As BP try to contain the effects of the oil leak disaster it seems they are doing even more harm. BP have created “burn fields” of 500 square miles to contain the oil. This has however trapped many endangered turtles as well as other sea creatures, who are being burnt alive within these fields.
The turtles which only narrowly avoided extinction in the past could see BP in an even deeper legal battle.
Environmentalists are demanding that the oil company stop blocking the rescue of the turtles and are also pressing the Obama administration to put a halt to the burn fields.
BP have placed one turtle spotter on the burn vessels but this doesn’t go anywhere near as far as the environmentalists want to go in their attempt to save the turtles.
Killing, or harming a turtle currently carries a fine of £33,000, and so it looks like more legal action will be taken against BP.

We all know that the tectonic plates are shifting, but the effects of these shifts are often only visible over thousands and thousands of years as countries and continents, move closer together or further apart. In Africa however the effects of the plates shifting is visible for everyone to see.

Scientists have explained this 60km crack in Ethiopia as the birth of a new ocean. They predict that in around 10 million years the continent of Africa will be split into two. Scientists studying this wonder of nature are hoping that it will help them to better understand the structure of the earth and ultimately hazards such as earthquakes and erupting volcanoes.

BP are still very much in the headlines, especially after their Boss, Tony Hayward, took this weekend off from the Oil scandal to go sailing with his son. The problems for BP just seem to be getting worse and worse and a deepwater horizon rig worker has now spoken out claiming that he had spotted a leak in the safety equipment of the rig, just weeks before the explosion.

There still seems to be a blame culture throughout the whole episode with BP stating that the rig owners Transocean were responsible for testing and maintaining the safety equipment. Had all the safety equipment been working as expected, a piece of machinery known as the Blow Out Preventer (BOP) should have cut off and sealed the wells pipe.

BP’s total cost as a result of the disaster now totals $1.34 billion and is set to cost a lot more as the clean up procedure continues and the investigation into what went wrong and who is to blame continues.

Team Green Britain are a team of individuals across the county who are doing their best to go green and reduce their carbon footprint. Every year the team celebrates Green Britain day, in which they encourage others to take up the green challenge. There are great prizes involved for those who go that extra mile and the group have also encouraged lots of schools to take part.

Green Britain day is on June 17th so why not make a difference and show your support by changing your normal routine for a green one. Whether it’s cycling to work or saving water by having showers instead of baths, every person can help.

Dr Joe Farman, who discovered the hole in the ozone layer 25 years ago, has expressed his concerns that not enough is being done to address the issue.

He explained that he feels that the problem is getting worse as time goes by, and put much of the blame on politicians.

One reason why Dr Farman feels that not enough is being done, is that he doesn’t think that the issue is being taken seriously enough.

He also made his feelings clear in saying that too much time, money and effort was being put into fancy climate modelling computers, and not enough in basic research and action.

It’s fair to say that Dr Farman is certainly not alone in his feelings…

American actress Brooke Shields is said to be less than happy about hearing reports that global warming doesn’t exist, and feels that it could have a further negative impact on plans to help the environment.

Brooke, who is well known for a range of high profile TV and movie roles, has used her position to try and educate the public on the topic of global warming, and what they can do to try and halt it.

Brooke explained:

“It all upsets me because I feel like we keep losing sight of simpler, smaller things. I don’t know what is true or not, I only know what I can do on a daily basis because I believe in it.”

Contrary to some recent reports, the recent volcanic eruption in Iceland is unlikely to have an effect on global warming.

Although the eruptions are said to have had a very small cooling effect, this is highly unlikely to slow down global warming to any extent.

Previous eruptions are said to have cooled the surface of the Earth by around 0.5 degrees celsius- which is unfortunately not enough to make a positive impact.

This means that eruptions have had no positive effect whatsoever- meaning that all they have really done is cause travel disruption all over the world, and it looks as though they may continue to do so for the forseeable future.

A recent report has suggested that the number of birds in the South of Engalnd has started to fall, which experts say, is likely to be an effect of global warming.

The percentage of our feathered friends feeding, nesting and breeding in the South is believed to have fallen by around 10-11%, although the study showed that the number of birds in other areas of the UK appear to have remained pretty steady.

One reason for the sole decline in the South is that this area is likely to feel the effects of global warming quicker than in other areas of the UK, although other non-environmental issues could be to blame.

According to studies, summer is arriving earlier and earlier in the UK because of the effects of global warming.

Although many people may find this hard to believe, given the fact that the weather seems to have taken a turn for the worse again, experts say that over the last few years, summer has started around 7th of May- compared to the 25th of May in the 1950s and 1960s.

Contrary to these findings though, experts have said that the onset of summer this year hasn’t followed this pattern, as temperatures have yet to reach an average of 14 degrees celsius. This makes it hard to know exactly what to believe…