Article 6 of our Water Stress series is now up. This one started with a simple question about Britain's increasing wildfires. We know that when a major fire overwhelms a local fire service, neighbouring services can send crews and equipment to help. But prolonged heat and drought don't stop at county boundaries. The same conditions that create a wildfire in Hampshire can exist simultaneously in Surrey, Berkshire and Sussex. So what happens when everybody needs help at once? That led me to investigate how prepared we actually are. 🚒 Can fire engines reach remote heathland and woodland? 💧 Where does the water come from when streams and ponds are already depleted by drought? 🚁 Does Britain have aircraft capable of water-bombing wildfires? 🔥 What happens when several major fires occur simultaneously? 🌍 And what can we learn from countries such as Spain, Portugal, Greece, Australia, Canada and the United States that have been dealing with this problem for much longer? One idea particularly struck me. Throughout this series we've been talking about moving water through time — capturing some of our abundant winter rainfall so it is available during increasingly dry summers. We've already found reasons to store water for people, farming and wildlife. Perhaps we need to add another: Water for emergencies. The latest article is: 🔥 When the Countryside Catches Fire Have a read, then come back and tell us what you think. And particularly, if you live somewhere where wildfire is already part of life, I'd love to hear what your community does that we could learn from. Notice. Speak Up. Suggest Ideas. Share Solutions.

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?