Heatwaves can have pleasant effects, with long sunny days encouraging people into parks and on to beaches, and they certainly bring a smile to the faces of ice-cream sellers.'
The use of 'climate breakdown' is borderline ironic and especially patronising when followed by the explanation:
'It is not possible to pin the current heatwave definitively on climate change, because the weather varies so much naturally. Moreover, the likely effects of climate change are not simple. For example, heavy rain and cloudy weather across swathes of northern Europe, including the UK, are likely to become more common as a result of the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causing the jet stream weather system to become fixed in position.
However, this year’s weather is certainly in line with the predictions scientists have made of rising temperatures, more heatwaves and prolonged droughts interspersed with periods of heavy flooding in some areas.'
Like you say, the simple answer to the question 'Is this heatwave a result of climate breakdown?' should just be a flat 'yes' at this point, and certainly not followed by a faux-world-weary 'any more gloom?' subtitle further down the article.
'Fiona Harvey is an award-winning environment journalist for the Guardian. Prior to this, she worked for the Financial Times for more than a decade. She has reported on every major environmental issue, from as far afield as the Arctic and the Amazon, and her wide range of interviewees include Ban Ki-moon, Tony Blair, Al Gore and Jeff Immelt' - https://web.archive.org/web/20190627132715/https://www.theguardian.com/profile/fiona-harvey
Another waste of space in the corporate press. The article is all about impacts on humans, with only a tangential nod to the welfare of the livestock and arable crops which underpin civilisation - so really only an extension of that narcissistic self-involvement. That's the only 'environment' they really care about, when it comes down to it.