When William Blake described England’s “green and pleasant land” in his poem Jerusalem, he was actually writing during a prolonged drought. Two centuries later, much of Europe is withering under successive heatwaves amid one of the most extreme droughts ever recorded.
The latest satellite image of England captured by Nasa shows not a green and pleasant land but one which is brown and parched. Under all that dry vegetation is sun-baked, dusty and desiccated soil.
