We’ve had plenty of rain. So why are our ponds drying up, streams running low and landscapes becoming increasingly stressed? That question led me to Article 2 of our Water Stress series. The problem isn’t simply how much rain we get. It’s when it falls, how it falls — and what happens to it afterwards. Increasingly, we face an extraordinary contradiction: 🌧️ Too much water in winter. ☀️ Too little water in summer. Heavy rain can rush off dry or saturated land, overwhelm drains and flow downstream. Then, months later, we find ourselves worrying about drought and water supplies. Which leads to a deceptively simple challenge: How do we move water through time? How do we hold onto some of the water that falls during wet periods so it is still available during increasingly hot, dry summers? Reservoirs, wetlands, healthy soils, aquifers, rain gardens, water butts and water recycling are all, in different ways, attempts to answer that question. In Article 2: Where Has All the Water Gone?, I explore what is changing and why our existing water systems may no longer match the climate they were designed for. But I also want your help. 👀 Notice — Where does rain go when it falls where you live? 📣 Speak Up — What are people saying locally about flooding, drought and water supplies? 💡 Suggest Ideas — How could we keep more winter rainfall for the summer? 🌍 Share Stories — Have you seen somewhere else doing this particularly well? Add your observations and ideas below. The solutions we need may already exist somewhere. We just need to find them, connect them — and work out what could work in our own communities. Find the article here 👉

The Vostok ice core — drilled from the Antarctic ice sheet between 1980 and 1998 — extends 3,623 meters into the ice and contains a climate record spanning 420,000 years. The EPICA Dome C core, completed in 2004, extends this record to 800,000 years. These cores contain trapped air bubbles — actual samples of ancient atmosphere, preserved at depth by the accumulating weight of snow above them — that allow scientists to measure the precise composition of the atmosphere at the time each layer was deposited. The data they contain is not a proxy, not an inference, not a model output. It is a direct measurement of ancient air. The air from 800,000 years ago is in those bubbles. You can analyze it. The analysis is reproducible. It has been reproduced by multiple independent research groups using multiple independent methodologies. The results are always the same. The result that matters most: In 800,000 years of atmospheric record, CO2 concentrations never exceeded 300 parts per million. The natural cycle of ice ages and warm periods produced CO2 fluctuations between approximately 180 parts per million during glacial maxima and 280 parts per million during warm interglacial periods. This range — 180 to 280 — is the range within which the climate system that produced every ecosystem on Earth, every species currently alive, and every human civilization ever built operated. The current atmospheric CO2 concentration is 421 parts per million. It crossed 300 for the first time in human history in approximately 1912. It crossed 400 for the first time in approximately 3 million years in 2013. The rate of increase — approximately 2.5 parts per million per year currently — is 100 times faster than any natural rate of change in the 800,000 year record. We have taken the atmosphere outside the range it has occupied for 800,000 years and we are moving it further outside that range faster than anything in the geological record. The significance of this cannot be overstated. Every biological adaptation — every physiological process, every ecological relationship, every seasonal cycle of every species on Earth — evolved within that 180 to 280 range. The timing of flowering, the navigation of migratory species, the coral bleaching threshold, the snowpack that feeds rivers — all of it calibrated to a climate system operating within a range that no longer exists.

For the farmer, it's the moment when they finally discover whether a year's worth of investment has paid off. Seeds, fertiliser, machinery, fuel, labour, weather, loans and uncertainty all come long before a single pound of income arrives. In this latest Stories from the Farm article, I explore the economics behind growing wheat and why a successful harvest doesn't always mean a profitable year. Understanding the financial pressures farmers face helps us have better conversations about food, prices and the future of farming. I'd love to hear your thoughts after you've read it. Find it here 👉

There is a difference between Climate Change and Weather. The first is all about long-term trends and patterns. Temperature changes that used to take place over hundreds of years are now occurring over decades. The second is what the forecast is for today or this week. Weather is fascinating in its own right; it makes for amazing sunsets and cloud formations, it waters out gardens and crops, and it changes what we wear. If you love the experience of weather and want to understand it better, here is the Skool for you: The Weather Watchers Community

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.