Article 10 of our Water Stress series is now up, and it starts with an apparent contradiction. Our winters are getting wetter. So why are we worrying about running out of water in summer? The more I've looked into this, the more I think we need to stop thinking only about how much rain falls during a year and start thinking about what happens to that water after it arrives. Some soaks into the soil. Some replenishes aquifers. Some fills ponds, wetlands and reservoirs. But some races from roofs, roads and fields into drains and rivers, contributes to flooding and then continues downstream. This led me back to an idea from the last article: the water budget. If a particular winter delivers more rain than the historical average, we can actually calculate that additional rainfall. Just 1mm of rain over 1km² represents one million litres of water. So rather than simply saying "that was a very wet winter", what if we started asking how many additional billions of litres fell — and then tried to understand what happened to them? That could give us something really useful: a way of measuring whether our communities are actually becoming more resilient. If we restore wetlands, improve soils, create ponds and reservoirs, recharge aquifers and capture more rain within our towns, the real measure of success isn't how many projects we completed. It's whether more useful water remains available for longer. Do our streams keep flowing further into summer? Do ponds survive longer? Are aquifers better replenished? Do farmers have more stored water? Do we reduce flooding after intense rainfall? This article brings together an idea that has gradually emerged through the series: Slow it. Spread it. Sink it. Store it. We cannot decide when the rain falls. But perhaps we can get much better at deciding what happens to it once it arrives. 🔗 Read Article 10 — Where Did All the Winter Water Go?

Article 7 of our Water Stress series is now up. This one started with what looks like a contradiction. We need more housing. But every new home creates a demand for water that could continue for the next 100 years — just as climate change is making our summer water supplies less reliable. So perhaps we're asking the wrong question. Rather than “Can we keep building without more water?”, perhaps we should ask: “What climate are we building for?” In the article I look at what happens if we start treating housing and water as parts of the same system. 💧 Could new homes capture much more of their own rainwater? 🚿 Could we routinely reuse greywater? 🌧️ Could roads and hard surfaces collect water rather than simply sending it down drains? 🌱 Could developments help replenish the aquifers beneath them? 🐸 Could ponds and wetlands store water while supporting wildlife and reducing flooding? And that led me to an idea I particularly like: It can take decades to build a reservoir. What if the neighbourhood was the reservoir? A house built today could still be standing towards the end of this century. We shouldn't just be designing it for today's climate, but for the one it will actually spend its life in. Have a read and tell me what you think. And if you know of developments anywhere in the world already doing this particularly well, please share them. That's exactly the kind of solution we want to find and learn from at Has2BGreen. 👀 Notice. 📣Speak Up. 💡Suggest Ideas. 🌍Share Solutions. Find the article here 👉 Article 7 — Can We Keep Building Without More Water?

Please welcome @Sophia Garcia and @Kendra Cigdem Hi to both of you and welcome to this strange group. The aim of the group is to provide background data on the Climate Crisis so that you can speak with an informed voice on the subject. The next step is to look at how the crisis is affecting each of us in our different parts of the world. Since I am in the UK I am doing a lot of work to identify how the climate crisis is affectring us in the 6th wealthiest country and, for me in Hampshire, how it affects us in one of the wealthiest counties. I am finding that the effects are all around us. And after five heatwaves over the summer we are seeing changes to our countryside, to our local farmers and to our local wildlife. Changes that are, in some cases, irreversable. As a result of this work I am now contacting local action groups to see how we can identify actions that are impactful. I have two in my sights. The first is that we are running out of water during our summer months. Not only for household use but also for the trees in our towns. The idea of needing to "water" our trees is alein to us. But without doing this, we will lose our Silver Birches, our Beach trees and maybe even our Oak trees. My suggestion is that we build new reservoirs to capture the increased winter rainfall and store it until we need it during our long dry spells in the summer. We don't have the money, reservoirs are not on the local council's radar (especially for trees!) and we do not have the land. If we do not do this we will lose the trees that provide cooling in the summer, the benefits of their air purification and carbon sequestration services. We are planting new trees, beacuse we have been told this is a good idea, but we are not doing enough to protect them during the early years and many are dying. So I have put forward the idea of Eco-Guardians, allocating groups of trees to nearby residents. As water supplies dwindle, the cost of water is increasing. Do we supply these guardians with payments to cover their costs?

Please welcome @Suki Zoe. Suki is a fellow Green Party member and our social media Director for the East Hampshire Green Party. But she is also my girlfriend. So I am a very biased. All members are equal, but some are a little bit more... special. Sorry, but it is true. We live in a world of individuals, some of whom have close family, but even they may be scattered across a nation or even across continents. One of the greatest challenges facing us as we try to reduce the impact of the Climate Crisis is the need to connect with others, build alliances and friendships, build communities, and work together. Village life, for most of us, is not even a memory. So our understanding of what community looks like may be sketchy at best. I have found recently that even when ideals overlap, you can have conflict. The sense of urgency battles with the concept of the right or wrong way to do things. Even when I feel our efforts are minuscule and will have no impact at all, I still want to do the right thing, say the right thing, treat others with respect, and yet I want to move forward quickly. We are in an emergency; tipping points loom on the horizon. When my efforts seem thwarted by my colleagues, I feel panicked. We can battle over the minutiae of wording and intent, or we can do the best we can and keep moving. But the cost of haste can result in weeks of delay. The need to align efforts, again and again, is vital in order to avoid the kind of conflict that can tear nascent communities apart. I find this requirement agonisingly frustrating, but I have found this last month even more painful as I see the results of pushing for speed, rather than understanding, have set us back. The broken nature of our modern lives means that trust is low. Intention is doubted and tested. We are willing to offer some leeway, but we seek the proof that the other is genuine. We are ready to pounce at the slightest hint that ill will is intended. It is understandable; there are so many examples of deviousness and self-serving actions all around us. The only way to overcome this is self-reflection, owning our own actions, then seeking to understand the other. When a conflict occurs, time is needed for this process to run its course.