The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) sobering "code red for humanity" report comes on the heels of months of devastating weather events around the world. Our front pages have been dominated by photos that look as if they've come from a film - images of heroic teams tackling forest fires against a bright orange sky, of planes dropping water and fire retardant, cars sinking into flooded streets and destroyed buildings.

One image - that of a ferry, carrying evacuees from the Greek island of Evia, surrounded by fire, helpless and in the middle of crisis - drew comparisons to the ferry scenes in the 2005 remake of War Of The Worlds. In the film, people poured onto a vehicle ferry in a desperate attempt to escape the extraterrestrial invasion.