Your editorial on Valencia’s tragic floods (1 November) is correct that “weather events that used to be regarded as ‘natural disasters’ are now, rightly, seen instead as climate disasters”. Yet the use of accurate scientific terms to describe what killed more than 200 people is only the first necessary step in reporting such catastrophic events.
When a road accident is reported, readers expect to know more than the road conditions or the momentum of the vehicles involved. Who was responsible? Were they driving dangerously? Was a drunk driver involved in the crash? Similarly, we should always ask who – not only what – fuelled extreme weather events like last week’s floods in Spain.
