The Florida Keys are the canaries in the climate-change coalmine | Joanna Guthrie

These complex, beautiful, fragile islands are a delicately balanced paradise. But their tipping point may have arrivedThe Florida Keys are still closed until further notice. On the far side of the blockade that inhabitants of the lower Keys negotiate to return to their homes, the US One highway, a tarmac spine over the limestone vertebrae of the islands, makes its way 127 miles down to Key West, battered and torn. Key West, final south-easterly outpost of mainland North America and the self-styled "last resort", is, still, four days after Hurricane Irma hit, almost completely out of contact with the outside world. Related: Hurricane Irma: how the Florida Keys' paradise became a 'humanitarian crisis' Continue reading...