David Gregory-Kumar
David Gregory-Kumar reports on how climate and environmental change is reshaping everyday life in the West Midlands for the BBC, combining regional field reporting with clear science explainers. He works as a science, environment and rural affairs correspondent across television, online and radio, with a long-running focus on how global climate trends translate into local impacts. His beat sits at the intersection of weather, infrastructure and agriculture, where he returns repeatedly to drought, heatwaves and the pressures they place on communities and landscapes in the region.
Climate change and extreme weather
Gregory-Kumar’s core through-line is making climate change tangible through detailed coverage of extreme weather and its consequences in the West Midlands.
In one recent piece he describes how a major fire in Stourbridge destroyed 19 homes, using the event to explore how a single summer could be the moment when climate change “felt real” for many residents. He draws on more than 25 years of reporting to set those scenes in context, explicitly noting a career spent documenting floods, dry spells, heatwaves and other climate-driven events across the region.
His coverage of heatwaves extends beyond temperature records, following the knock-on effects such as Staffordshire school closures when classrooms became too hot for pupils and staff. In articles on farmers struggling to plan for extreme weather, he ties together forecasts, historic patterns and on-the-ground testimony to show how increasing volatility is changing what it means to farm in the West Midlands.
Across these stories, the emphasis is on concrete impacts, clear language and specific local examples rather than abstract global debate.
Water, drought and infrastructure
Water stress and drought are a second major strand in Gregory-Kumar’s reporting, where he often uses reservoirs, rivers and everyday utilities as entry points into larger climate questions.
In coverage of Draycote Water, he examines how changing rainfall patterns and higher temperatures have reshaped drought in the West Midlands, linking reservoir levels to domestic and business demand. He reports on official pleas to use water “wisely” to avoid hosepipe bans, framing them against the speed with which drought has emerged in recent years and the challenge of balancing public behaviour with infrastructure limits. In live coverage of drought affecting more than two-thirds of England, he explains the concept of “flash drought” by likening it to a switch being flipped when the rain stops and conditions deteriorate far faster than people are used to.
His analysis of why road gritters are deployed in hot weather rather than just ice and snow adds another infrastructural angle, translating technical details into everyday terms by noting how black road surfaces can reach temperatures around 55C in direct sun. These pieces share a clear style: specific numbers or mechanisms, grounded in visible local settings, used to show how climate change now interacts with built systems that people rely on every day.
Agriculture and rural affairs
Gregory-Kumar’s rural affairs coverage follows how farmers and food producers adapt to a changing climate, with particular attention to crops, funding and long-term planning.
In his reporting on farmers struggling to plan for extreme weather, he captures both practical challenges and emotional strain, quoting producers who describe the difficulty of making decisions when conditions and policies keep shifting. A feature on the blackcurrant harvest window almost halving asks “why?” and uses that single crop to illustrate how warmer weather and altered seasons compress the time available to pick and process fruit.
He also covers policy shocks, such as funding scheme closures that farmers describe as “another blow” and “changed overnight,” showing how financial support structures interact with climate risk on the ground. Beyond these articles, his role includes presenting programmes on farming and rural issues on national radio, extending the same themes of climate, land use and food production into regular audio reporting.
Taken together, his rural coverage offers a consistent picture of agriculture under pressure, built from interviews in fields and barns rather than statistics alone.
Science explainers and multi-platform reporting
Across his work Gregory-Kumar uses science explainers and analysis pieces to bridge specialist knowledge and everyday experience. His analysis from the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution in Coalbrookdale connects historical coal use and furnace technology to today’s climate debate, using the physical presence of Abraham Darby’s furnace to anchor a story about emissions and responsibility.
In pieces on road surfaces, flash droughts and heatwaves, he breaks down why certain materials heat up, why rainfall deficits accelerate and how climate signals are distinguished from normal weather variability, often within short regional news formats. He contributes these reports on television bulletins, digital articles and radio programmes, shifting between straight news, labelled analysis and live explanation depending on the format. Alongside his environment and science work, he has also written lighter technology and culture pieces, such as coverage of the classic video game Chuckie Egg returning on smartphones and tablets, showing a range that includes but is not limited to climate and rural affairs.
His overall output is defined less by platform and more by a consistent aim: to explain complex environmental changes in plain language, grounded in specific places and the people who live and work there.
4 more environment journalists.
Abby Wallace
Abby Wallace covers where energy, climate and politics meet, with a focus on how net zero, power markets and extreme weather affect people and institutions. She is an energy and climate reporter at POLITICO, covering U.K. energy policy, climate targets and the transition from fossil fuels. Her subjects include government and opposition debates over net zero, decarbonization, support schemes, infrastructure, public spending and climate adaptation. She also reports on energy companies, household bills, labor standards, supply chains and corporate accountability. Her work connects technical policy choices to jobs, competitiveness, public services and voter sentiment. She uses polling, expert voices and political analysis to examine public attitudes and government response to extreme weather. Before POLITICO, she worked on the companies desk at the Financial Times and the business news desk at Insider. She has also freelanced on politics, business and climate.
Adam Fulton
Adam Fulton is a digital news producer focused on fast-moving global stories where environment, conflict and politics meet. He works on the Guardian’s Australian operation, using rolling live blogs to cover geopolitical crises, climate-linked disasters and wars with clear structure and context. His Middle East coverage, including the Gaza peace plan, tracks tension between political messaging and on-the-ground realities, tying leaders’ statements to military movements, diplomatic reactions and humanitarian reports. His disaster reporting, such as on Nepal–Tibet floods, links rising tolls and missing people to infrastructure damage, rescue strain and cascading environmental threats. His Ukraine war blogs treat resource scarcity, especially water and energy, as strategic factors and track how infrastructure damage shapes the conflict. A former entertainment and arts reporter and senior editor at major Australian newspapers, he applies careful pacing and narrative arcs to collaborative, time-stamped live coverage.
Alec Luhn
Alec Luhn is an environment reporter whose work follows climate change at its extremes, frontiers and human consequences, often reporting directly from places where warming, instability and displacement intersect. He covers climate, conflict and migration, showing how abstract climate trends turn into risks for communities, infrastructure, health and preparedness. He reports for New Scientist on climate breakdown, extreme events, El Niño, limits of models, melting glaciers, warming seas and adaptation to heat, mixing scientific explanation with lived experience. A defining strand of his work is reporting from remote icy and mountainous regions on Arctic sea ice loss, permafrost, polar bears, pollution and fragile ecosystems. He has a long record on conflict and security, including the Skripal poisoning case. His reporting appears in New Scientist and major international outlets, with work across print, digital, audio and television and recognition from climate and journalism awards.
Amy Lyall
Amy Lyall is a regular contributor to The Connexion, and her work stands out for turning French rules, services and the built environment into clear, usable advice for everyday readers. She covers housing, energy use, resident obligations and the practical steps behind things like getting air-conditioning approved for flats. Her beat also includes national and local schemes, insurance and legal conditions for lending a car, mobile network coverage, mosquito-borne diseases, water filters, fruit harvests and emergency drones with defibrillators. She writes news, practical guides and magazine-style features, using plain language to explain technical topics and official systems. She also writes explainers on French words and phrases and occasional culture pieces on unusual sites such as Maison Picassiette.