> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://wiki.greatcollaboration.uk/knowledgebase/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://wiki.greatcollaboration.uk/knowledgebase/events/banter-sessions-inc-table-of-all-sessions/banter-140-more-good-news-with-graham-stoddart-stones.md). # Banter 140: More Good News, with Graham Stoddart-Stones urban wetland restoration projects, floating wetlands and drain pipe modifications to create biodiversity habitats, iron-air alternatives to lithium batteries, double-tall wind turbines {% embed url="" %} ## Video Timeline: 00:00 - 01:12 Introduction\ 01:12 - 12:41 video\ 12:41 - 59.6(end) Q & A session Link: The presentation contains a link to an external video. For those who would like to see it separately: ### Bringing Nature back to our City: *** #### Presentation: {% embed url="" %} You are welcome ot view and/or download this presentation, by clicking on the menu icon (second from the right, bottom line) bove. A markdown (text only) version is available at the bottom of the page *** #### Meeting Summary: Oct 07, 2026 11:58 AM LondonID: 834 5460 8536 ### Quick recap This meeting was a discussion group focused on environmental issues and climate change, led by Graham with participants including John, Frank, Ken, Andrew, Pam, Sue, Stuart, and others. Graham shared a 11-minute video from Planet Wild about urban wetland restoration projects in Bristol, including floating wetlands and drain pipe modifications to create biodiversity habitats. The group discussed various environmental developments including new alternatives to lithium batteries. Participants shared concerns about the scale and timing of climate action, with Stuart raising questions about reversing business-as-usual practices by multinational companies, and Frank suggesting the need for political engagement to influence policymakers. The discussion included debate about taxing fossil fuel profits, with Gary proposing 100% taxation to discourage fossil fuel use, while others noted the challenge of reducing government revenue from current fuel taxes. Ken shared positive experiences with the People’s Emergency Briefing, which has engaged over 3,000 participants and influenced some Conservative MPs to support climate action. The group agreed that crises often drive action rather than long-term planning, though this approach can be costly in the long term. ### Next steps #### Garry * Lead the next week's discussion on creating carbon footprint calculations for small town councils. #### Graham * Publish the partner communications pack for flood warnings on the knowledge base and include the link for attendees to download. #### Collaboration * All attendees: Update their display names in the meeting to include their location by clicking the three dots in the top right-hand corner and selecting rename. ### Summary ####
#### Bristol Wetland City Project Graham and the Planet Wild team discussed their project to transform Bristol into the UK's first wetland city by installing floating wetlands and converting Drainpipes into miniature wetlands. They highlighted successful nature restoration initiatives in Seoul, the Netherlands, China, and Singapore, emphasizing the potential for similar projects worldwide. The team installed two floating wetland platforms in Bristol, with plans for up to 5,000 square meters of such installations, and demonstrated how to create a simple wetland in a box attached to a Drainpipe. #### Climate Change Emission Reduction Strategies Graham discussed a book about climate change that emphasizes reducing carbon emissions rather than just implementing local solutions like solar panels. He explained that the book's author, Dieter Helm, suggests focusing on reducing demand for CO2 generation through insulation and waste reduction rather than just installing renewable energy systems. Graham also mentioned new technology using small satellites to detect greenhouse gas emissions, noting they weighed around 33lbs. The discussion concluded with comments about the challenges of renewable energy, particularly the need for storage solutions when wind and solar power are intermittent. #### Renewable Energy Technology Advances Graham discussed new energy storage technologies, including ion air batteries that can provide power for days and are being tested as an alternative to lithium batteries for longer-term storage. He also shared information about new tall wind turbines being installed in Germany, which are twice the height of regular turbines and positioned between existing ones to maximize wind energy capture. Graham concluded by highlighting the significant cost reductions in renewable energy technologies over the past 16 years, with solar panel costs falling by 90%, onshore wind by 70%, offshore wind by 60%, and battery storage by 93%, making renewables more economically viable than traditional power sources like nuclear or gas. #### Renewable Energy and Industry Updates Graham discussed the cost of renewable energy production, noting that while generation costs about 5 pence per kilowatt hour, the total cost reaches 26p per kilowatt hour including grid distribution and standing charges. He shared positive news about Octopus Energy's growth from a small company to one with £14 billion revenue and 13,000 employees, highlighting their unique company culture based on weekly planning meetings and Friday team discussions. Graham also mentioned progress in nuclear energy, including small modular reactors and new approaches to managing radioactive waste that could reduce storage requirements from hundreds of thousands to a few hundred years. #### Climate Change Governance Discussion Graham and Stuart discussed concerns about climate change and environmental efforts, with Stuart expressing worry about the scale and time required to address the crisis. Graham suggested that the current governance system is not fit for purpose, as it favors those with more resources and influence. He emphasized the importance of education and removing "scoundrels" from power. Stuart mentioned that climate and environmental issues seem to have dropped off the public radar, to which Graham responded that while progress has been made since the 1960s, the pace remains concerning. #### Climate Action Policy Discussion The group discussed climate change action and policy responses. Graham emphasized the need to support large-scale initiatives like Octopus Energy's efforts. Frank highlighted the importance of political engagement, suggesting that climate action should align with vote-winning strategies for certain political parties. Ken shared positive experiences with the People's Emergency Briefing (PEB) initiative, which has successfully mobilized community groups and influenced some politicians' perspectives. Garry proposed a 100% tax on fossil fuel profits to discourage their use and encourage renewable energy adoption. John and others discussed how crises often drive action, though this approach may divert resources from long-term solutions. The group agreed to explore carbon footprint calculations for small town councils in the next meeting. *** #### Chat: 00:32:13 Pam Rosling: Re price drop in electricity - how can that be as our electricity price is linked to the price of gas unfortunately! 00:35:03 Pam Rosling: Why is the government still giving subsidies to livestock farmers when the best climate-friendly diet is plat-based …?! 00:35:20 Pam Rosling: plant-based! 00:37:34 Pam Rosling: I believe they also still subsidize fossil fuels as well!! 00:40:21 Sue Burton: Frank mentioned NEP ,I think, what is that ? 00:40:32 Pam Rosling: And why are new houses still being built without renewable energy systems! **00:42:25 Pam Rosling:** ### Re sodium batteries see here: 00:46:07 John Payne: As someone who has w\... \[Full message cannot be displayed here] 00:47:37 Andrew Clegg: The problem is - our disasters are not yet big enough 00:48:46 Pam Rosling: Replying to "The problem is - our..." ...but the flooding has been disastrous for many! 00:50:05 Pam Rosling: ...so using fossils for the old fossils!! 00:52:25 Andrew Clegg: Agree absolutely John 00:52:57 Pam Rosling: Reacted to "As someone who has w\..." with 😰 00:54:08 Sue Burton: Could speakers say where they are from. It goes us context 00:58:09 Pam Rosling: Plant-based diets are actually healthier!! *** #### Audio-transcript: 41 00:06:28.460 --> 00:06:43.009 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So today I thought we'd change things around a bit. I'd like to give a series of thoughts of interesting things that are happening or developments I've not come across before or stuff that's new, just a varied sort of chat to get people talking. 42 00:06:43.060 --> 00:06:49.549 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And the first thing to do was to show you a video. Now, I apologize, it's about 11 minutes long, which I hope you're all 43 00:06:49.600 --> 00:07:01.239 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: be able to put up with, and I hope the sound is good, because I had a problem with the sound at this end, but hopefully, you'll all be all right at your ends. So this is all about greenery. 44 00:07:04.060 --> 00:07:05.010 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And I apologize. 45 00:07:05.280 --> 00:07:06.150 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Very good. 46 00:07:10.870 --> 00:07:15.780 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Changing somebody, we get a cold Beverage to stay at Bill's Joe 47 00:07:19.920 --> 00:07:20.740 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: you. 48 00:07:25.590 --> 00:07:26.220 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Sorry about that. 49 00:07:26.220 --> 00:07:29.870 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: What if there was a way to transform your city from this. 50 00:07:29.870 --> 00:07:54.759 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: to this? Replacing concrete with flowers and drains with rain gardens. What if we can make our towns resilient against floods, heat waves, and droughts whilst boosting biodiversity and mental health? Right now, all around the world, people are finding incredible ways to bring nature back into our cities. And we're here in Bristol to do exactly that. We're literally kind of surfing on a wetland right 51 00:07:54.760 --> 00:07:57.750 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And I never thought I would say that sentence. 52 00:07:57.760 --> 00:07:58.490 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: you 53 00:07:58.830 --> 00:08:23.549 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Pockets of lush green wetlands have been popping up all over the city. Now there's a plan to create a green corridor along the river's embankment, and we're going to help make this dream a reality. Together with our friend Sam Bentley, we'll explore just how easily we can upgrade our cities and what that means for the future of urban environments all over the world. In this video, we're going to be checking out loads of genius innovations 54 00:08:23.610 --> 00:08:29.989 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: that are bringing nature back to the city, piece by piece. We're Planet Wild. Welcome to Mission 43. 55 00:08:33.840 --> 00:08:40.889 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: More than half of the global population live in cities, and many of these places have one thing in common. 56 00:08:41.159 --> 00:08:43.299 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: They were built on water. 57 00:08:43.570 --> 00:08:47.709 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Basically, where you see a city, there used to be a swamp or a wetland. 58 00:08:47.820 --> 00:08:54.360 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Then we built huge drainage networks to remove the water, and paved over the land so we could live there. 59 00:08:54.470 --> 00:09:02.380 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Sometimes even burying entire rivers underground, like the Bievre in Paris, the Fleet in London, or the Froom here in Bristol. 60 00:09:02.720 --> 00:09:21.480 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Predictably, removing all this water has led to some massive problems. Flash flooding. Flash flooding. Flash flooding in parts of London. Urban heat island effect. Dangerous conditions to be outdoors. Turns out, wetlands aren't just incredibly important for wildlife, but they also keep temperature and water levels stable. 61 00:09:21.550 --> 00:09:37.880 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: You know, the kind of thing we humans really need to survive. And this is why all over the world, people are bringing wetlands back into our cities. When you start to install wetlands across the city, whether that's a small rain garden, a drainpipe wetland right the way to a lake in your local park. 62 00:09:37.880 --> 00:09:51.859 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: It's really sort of magical and everyone in the city benefits from wetlands. This is Julia from WWT, the wetland charity. They're kicking off a huge effort to turn Bristol into the UK's first wetland city. 63 00:09:51.930 --> 00:10:03.850 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: By replacing old drainage systems with lush rain gardens, installing micro wetlands and backyards, and anchoring huge wetlands on the river, they're creating little pockets of biodiversity everywhere. 64 00:10:03.850 --> 00:10:16.160 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: In fact, over the next few years, there'll be 200 new projects here in Bristol to bring nature back. Just imagine the impact that this would have. It would completely transform public space across the city. 65 00:10:16.160 --> 00:10:24.729 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Creating habitat, absorbing floodwaters, filtering toxic runoff, and cooling the city down. And the transformation has already begun. 66 00:10:24.830 --> 00:10:39.030 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: WWT and their partners are creating a wildlife corridor through the city center, and this is the next piece of the puzzle. We are currently building and planting a futuristic structure called a floating wetland. 67 00:10:39.130 --> 00:10:54.589 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: We've got one platform which is 100 square meters, and another smaller 16 square meter platform, specifically designed with these miniature staircases to save baby seagulls that are getting stuck in a corner of the harbor. But we are not doing this alone. 68 00:10:54.590 --> 00:11:09.059 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Hey, Cam. All right, Sam. How's it going? How's it going? This is Sam Bentley, founder and host of one of our favorite YouTube channels. If you've never heard of him, he reports good news stories from around the world and is also making a video about the transformation of Bristol. 69 00:11:09.140 --> 00:11:12.490 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So we asked him if he could help us with our new floating wetlands. 70 00:11:12.700 --> 00:11:17.619 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: This is that, and then this becomes there, and… Huh? 71 00:11:18.120 --> 00:11:30.290 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Okay, okay. This is how it works. Step one is putting all the pieces together and locking them in place. It's a completely modular structure that can be built to any size, and every element is recycled. 72 00:11:30.290 --> 00:11:48.320 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Recyclable or biodegradable. The frame and floats are old drinking water pipes that are wrapped in coconut husk. And instead of soil or mud that would just drift away, we're using buoyant clay pellets as the plant bed. And step two is planting it with more than 20 species of native wetland plants. 73 00:11:48.460 --> 00:11:51.150 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Mmm. 74 00:11:51.270 --> 00:11:53.200 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: What have you got? Nice. 75 00:11:54.060 --> 00:11:55.200 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Glorious. 76 00:11:57.340 --> 00:12:06.690 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So above water, we have this layered planting system that creates an oasis for pollinators and a safe haven for nesting birds. But the real magic happens underneath. 77 00:12:06.690 --> 00:12:22.690 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: As these plants grow, their roots go super deep into the water, creating a refuge for marine life, cleaning the water, taking all those pollutants out, and also regulating water temperature too. There's potential to install up to 5,000 square metres of these floating wetlands here in Bristol. 78 00:12:22.690 --> 00:12:44.860 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Transforming the concrete embankment into a thriving nature corridor. So the Planet Wild community is completely funding the construction and installation of these two modules, as well as even more platforms in the future to make this dream a reality. You know, with Planet Wild, we do projects all over the world, bringing nature back in different, like, remote, far flung places. 79 00:12:44.860 --> 00:12:57.570 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: But it's just amazing to see that it can come back in the middle of our cities. So in addition to the floating wetlands, we're also helping WWT to develop a miniature wetland in a box that can be attached to any ordinary drainpipe. 80 00:12:58.160 --> 00:13:04.919 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: To show you how it works, we're going to take a break from the harbour and visit a small garden nearby to build a prototype. 81 00:13:08.200 --> 00:13:09.759 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: We should probably get on with it, though. 82 00:13:10.050 --> 00:13:11.910 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Yeah. 83 00:13:13.240 --> 00:13:25.870 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So this is a very ordinary drain pipe coming from the roof. And so when it rains, the water goes from the gutter all the way down here, straight into the drain. But we are going to catch this water and use it to create a wetland in a box. 84 00:13:25.870 --> 00:13:40.659 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Well, it's actually two boxes. The top box acts as a pond where aquatic plants can thrive as it fills up with rainwater. This eventually overflows into the bottom box, a miniature bog that insects and amphibians can call home. 85 00:13:40.700 --> 00:13:47.609 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So to make it yourself, you just need to follow these steps. First thing we need to do is make a hole in the bottom. 86 00:13:47.620 --> 00:14:02.030 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: This hole should be covered with a filter, and we used this permeable plant pot. Then, add a layer of gravel, a fabric membrane, and a layer of soil. The membrane is there to stop the soil running down the drain. Step 2. 87 00:14:02.100 --> 00:14:07.220 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Drill a hole into the side of the top box, allowing the water to flow into the bottom box. 88 00:14:07.250 --> 00:14:22.520 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Step three, take a deep breath and cut the drain pipe so that the entire structure will be in the perfect position to catch the water. Step four, fill everything with native wetland plants and add a wall of loose bricks. And that's it. We're done. 89 00:14:22.520 --> 00:14:36.940 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And within hours, you'll start to get insects like dragonflies and damselflies coming back here, spiders can make their homes in here, frogs and newts can come and live in here, and it's just incredible the amount of biodiversity that can come back just with this. 90 00:14:36.940 --> 00:14:45.900 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: The UK actually has 4,000 square kilometres of garden space just like this. And now we can actually start to use some of that and give it back to nature. 91 00:14:49.120 --> 00:15:14.119 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: we have to interrupt this Planet Wild video to bring you some breaking good news from cities around the world first up we're heading to Seoul South Korea for decades the jongujon stream was completely buried underneath a massive elevated Highway but in the early 2000s the city actually tore that highway down and restored the natural River since then biodiversity has exploded by over 600 percent and the corridor is 92 00:15:14.120 --> 00:15:39.099 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: now home to hundreds of species of fish, birds and insects. Now we're heading over to the Netherlands where one company has found a way to turn lifeless concrete buildings into green space. Respire use a moisture retaining concrete layer to grow moss directly onto walls. Within 12 weeks it forms a green surface that survives on rainwater alone, filtering air pollution while naturally cooling the building. 93 00:15:39.100 --> 00:16:04.089 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Next up, we're looking to China, where they're creating huge sponge cities. Instead of using great infrastructure like concrete pipes to drain storm water, they're building sprawling urban wetland parks and permeable pavements that naturally soak up extreme floods like a giant sponge. But the ultimate nature city has to be Singapore. By making greenery a core part of their urban design, they've turned a dense 94 00:16:04.090 --> 00:16:25.620 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: metropolis into a city in nature. And their waterways are now so healthy that families of wild otters are happily swimming right through the middle of the central business district. You can see from these projects there's not just one solution. In a city, you have to find little pockets and corners to bring nature back around human infrastructure. And that's exactly what we're doing in Bristol. 95 00:16:30.310 --> 00:16:36.189 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: We're literally kind of surfing on a wetland right now, and I never thought I would say that sentence. 96 00:16:41.400 --> 00:16:50.919 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: This will be the permanent home of our new wetland. For centuries, it's been a grey wall, but thanks to the Planet Wild community, it will soon look like this. 97 00:16:52.700 --> 00:17:06.510 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: This piece was installed just two years ago, and you can see the difference. It's just, like, full of life. There's families of birds in there, it's full of insects, I've seen loads of fish swimming underneath. Just incredible what can happen in such a short space of time. 98 00:17:09.040 --> 00:17:16.579 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And of course, this is just the beginning. These plants will start to establish, they'll start to grow, and it really will start attracting nature in. 99 00:17:16.990 --> 00:17:27.709 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: We haven't even finished installing the wetland yet, and there's this family of swans rocking up and checking it out. It could potentially be their new home. Like, that is just so perfect, so beautiful. 100 00:17:30.320 --> 00:17:35.530 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Finally, we installed the second platform, and again, the effect was instant. 101 00:17:36.640 --> 00:17:48.779 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So we literally just installed the floating wetland, and we've seen a baby seagull who was stuck in the water use the ramp and climb up onto the platform. And that's just saved its life. It's just unbelievable to witness. 102 00:17:53.280 --> 00:18:06.069 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And that is the beauty of this project. Nature is just waiting beneath the concrete and the asphalt. And once you give it a chance, it's immediately making our cities more biodiverse, safer, and simply nicer places to live. 103 00:18:06.230 --> 00:18:18.829 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And because it's such a simple solution, it can easily be copied around the world. So our funding here is not only transforming Bristol, but it's also creating a blueprint for future wetland cities everywhere. 104 00:18:19.030 --> 00:18:26.929 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Thank you so much for making it all the way to the end of the video. I hope you can tell that we put a lot of hard work into the missions and the mission videos. 105 00:18:26.940 --> 00:18:43.360 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: But we really couldn't do any of it without our community. Right now, we're more than 27,000 members. We're actually growing really quickly, which is so exciting. Every single month, we go on a mission to bring back endangered species, to clean up our oceans, and to restore entire landscapes. 106 00:18:43.360 --> 00:18:48.980 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So if that sounds good to you, you can join Planet Wild as a backer by following the QR code here. 107 00:18:48.980 --> 00:18:50.440 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Or the link in the description. 108 00:18:50.580 --> 00:18:53.330 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Thanks so much for watching, and catch you next time. 109 00:18:59.530 --> 00:19:02.940 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Okay, so I hope that everyone found that fun. 110 00:19:03.140 --> 00:19:07.400 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: I like the idea of having our own water butts at home. 111 00:19:07.400 --> 00:19:18.190 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: You already sent 50 of them. Oh, just using this app called WhisperFlow. It's fully replaced my keyboard, and honestly, it's the best app that I've ever found. You've got to give it a try. Another app to download. Hang on, let me see if I can put… 112 00:19:18.190 --> 00:19:19.310 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Thanks. 113 00:19:19.310 --> 00:19:26.780 Audio shared by Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Every time I want to say something. Hard pass. No, you just tap start flow on your keyboard whenever you're writing. It works in every app. Right, watch. 114 00:19:36.930 --> 00:19:38.520 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: I hope I have people back with me. 115 00:19:38.930 --> 00:19:46.240 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Moving on to the next item, there's a book that came out Quite about 15 years ago. 116 00:19:46.350 --> 00:19:53.379 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: That forecast all sorts of nasty issues, and it's been slightly revised, about 117 00:19:53.600 --> 00:20:05.139 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: 12 years ago, but it's still wrong in many places, but in many cases it's right. So I thought I'd just mention it in passing to people, because it's got some good ideas. 118 00:20:05.310 --> 00:20:11.939 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: What the guy is trying to say, basically, is that We need to start thinking. 119 00:20:13.190 --> 00:20:14.110 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: on… 120 00:20:14.460 --> 00:20:20.979 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: a wider basis than just our local community. So if you put solar panels on your village hall, it's a good idea. 121 00:20:21.250 --> 00:20:33.119 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: But what you've got to do is get less carbon entering the atmosphere in the first place. So it's just part of the old pattern. We all know this, that you've got to stop generating the carbon in the first place. 122 00:20:35.080 --> 00:20:36.220 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So… 123 00:20:36.290 --> 00:20:52.440 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: That means that the priority that they would like, or he would like Mr. Dieter Helm would like you to look at is not so much putting up the solar panels on the Village Hall, but reduce the demand that's generating Co. 2 in the 1st place. So get your houses insulated. 124 00:20:52.440 --> 00:20:57.120 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Stop wasting things, all the stuff that he's got listed here. 125 00:20:58.010 --> 00:21:04.460 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So… I just thought I'd mention it in case anyone was looking for a book to read. 126 00:21:06.980 --> 00:21:10.829 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Next item up, I thought was, interestingly different. 127 00:21:11.080 --> 00:21:14.360 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: is that… If you ask… 128 00:21:14.480 --> 00:21:26.779 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: oil companies or anybody who's creating methane, why they boil it off, burn it off instead of just stopping all the leaks. Bit like your water companies who say that at least 40% 129 00:21:26.910 --> 00:21:28.550 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Of the water that there's… 130 00:21:28.930 --> 00:21:41.490 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: pumping around gets lost through leaks, and you ask the question, well, so why don't you go and sort the leaks out? And the problem is that A, they find that it's expensive to find them, and B, it's expensive to replace them, to repair them. 131 00:21:41.790 --> 00:21:52.839 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: But I thought it would be interesting in that resolve to say that there are now ways of looking for greenhouse gas emissions, like methane or carbon dioxide. 132 00:21:52.860 --> 00:22:02.929 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: or any of the other nice nasties that we have going up into the atmosphere just by putting a small satellite into space. 133 00:22:03.170 --> 00:22:15.250 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And the beauty of these satellites is that they are small. So this is a 33 pound satellite, which, thanks to Mr. Musk in his better days, is a lot less expensive to throw up into orbit nowadays. 134 00:22:15.600 --> 00:22:27.579 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And so, again, this is just news of different ways that we're doing to resolve some of the issues that we've got. So, nice to know that the satellites are being helpful as well as being 135 00:22:27.740 --> 00:22:29.050 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And problematic. 136 00:22:31.740 --> 00:22:37.509 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Lots of discussion about the cost of electricity, the beauty of. 137 00:22:38.550 --> 00:22:46.669 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: renewables, such as wind and solar. And the problem that of course the wind isn't always blowing, and the solar isn't always shining. 138 00:22:46.790 --> 00:22:53.270 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So, you have to store stuff, and the battery storages that have been used hitherto 139 00:22:53.530 --> 00:23:04.439 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: are expensive, and they have issues like overheating and all sorts of things. So they're trying new systems. And I, this is the newest one I've come across recently is iron air batteries. 140 00:23:04.750 --> 00:23:13.869 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Which literally… Are storing electricity by making iron go rusty as you pour the electricity in. 141 00:23:14.590 --> 00:23:25.280 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: or other way of background, sorry, as you, take the energy out, the rusty… the iron goes rusty, and as you recharge it, you turn the rust back into iron. I'm not at all sure of 142 00:23:25.530 --> 00:23:28.049 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: The way that that works, but it does. 143 00:23:28.440 --> 00:23:35.200 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So, what they're saying in your storage hierarchy, that if you're looking for seconds or minutes of power, then you use the grid. 144 00:23:35.400 --> 00:23:46.140 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: If you're looking for just hours of storage, like UPS uninterruptible power supplies and things, then you have a lithium battery. But ion air gives you days. 145 00:23:46.460 --> 00:23:54.259 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And then you need storage, like, hydrogen or compressed air or, or, water. 146 00:23:54.790 --> 00:23:56.829 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: For the longer term stuff. 147 00:23:57.530 --> 00:24:04.280 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So, again, I hadn't come across ion air batteries before, so I mentioned it as a light-hearted thing for fun. 148 00:24:07.220 --> 00:24:15.440 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: lots of wind farms around there. So these people in Germany have said, rather than adding more. 149 00:24:16.670 --> 00:24:22.800 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: wind turbines down at the same level as all the others. Why don't we just fill in the gaps in between? 150 00:24:23.020 --> 00:24:27.210 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: With a wind turbine that's twice the height. 151 00:24:27.840 --> 00:24:36.329 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And the beauty of that is, of course, as any person who sails will tell you, is that the winds a bit higher up are much 152 00:24:36.550 --> 00:24:42.920 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: More stable and stronger at higher altitudes and here we're looking at something that's going to be. 153 00:24:43.170 --> 00:24:45.819 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: 1,200 feet up in the air. 154 00:24:46.470 --> 00:24:49.609 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So, 300 meters odd, as opposed to the… 155 00:24:49.780 --> 00:24:56.910 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Very much smaller, 150 meters, that your regular wind turbine is soaring nowadays. 156 00:24:57.500 --> 00:24:58.430 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And. 157 00:24:59.040 --> 00:25:15.489 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: The first ones have been built. They are… interestingly, they're extendable, so you build one that's sort of the same size as your normal one, and then you put it on its mast and send it up half as far again, or twice as far again. The mast is telescopic, although it doesn't look like it there. 158 00:25:15.850 --> 00:25:32.379 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: But again, I just thought that was fun, that they're not necessarily going to put them in new wind farms, taking up more space. They're going to retrofit them back into existing wind farms, because the new turbines don't get in the wind flow of the younger turbines. 159 00:25:33.290 --> 00:25:34.750 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Smaller ones, rather. 160 00:25:34.910 --> 00:25:36.670 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So just something different. 161 00:25:39.280 --> 00:25:43.719 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: I was taking a look at what's happened to the cost of electricity. 162 00:25:43.990 --> 00:25:49.869 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: As far as generating it is concerned, and then as far as we paying for it is concerned. 163 00:25:51.400 --> 00:25:54.229 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And how much further, if any, there is to go. 164 00:25:54.440 --> 00:25:57.690 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So, in the last 16 years. 165 00:25:57.850 --> 00:26:05.400 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: The cost of solar panels has fallen by 90%, onshore wind by 70%, offshore wind by 60%, 166 00:26:05.690 --> 00:26:18.630 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And there's been an even larger savings in battery storage. The costs over that same period dropped by 93%, I think, which is extraordinary, but also really, really good news. 167 00:26:18.980 --> 00:26:26.490 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So… What we're paying for our electricity, you'll see that it's now much cheaper. 168 00:26:26.990 --> 00:26:41.200 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: to go with renewables than it is to build our current, sort of, base supplies from nuclear or from gas. I mean, there's no more coal-fired power stations in our country. 169 00:26:41.540 --> 00:26:58.929 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So, we are either going to be using wind or solar, and last year, I'm sure most of you will remember that we actually generated more electricity by renewables than we did by, standard, if that's the word to use for gas… for power stations. 170 00:27:00.570 --> 00:27:01.300 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Okay. 171 00:27:02.630 --> 00:27:09.980 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And then compare that with the cost that we pay. So, the cost is something in the order of 5 pence per kilowatt hour. 172 00:27:09.980 --> 00:27:23.580 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: to produce it. It gets to us at about 26p per kilowatt hour, because, of course, that cost of generating it didn't include the grid and all the controls and all the manpower and everything else that is needed to distribute the electricity. 173 00:27:23.830 --> 00:27:27.150 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And we all get clobbered with a standing charge. 174 00:27:27.640 --> 00:27:31.810 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Which is about another £200 a year thrown in on top of that, but… 175 00:27:32.530 --> 00:27:39.060 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: I think the more we go with the renewables, then we ought to be able to see. 176 00:27:39.360 --> 00:27:50.699 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: The costs of our electricity dropping, even as we start using more and more of it for our cars and our household heating and all the other stuff that's being developed nowadays. 177 00:27:51.200 --> 00:27:53.270 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So good news there, I thought. 178 00:27:55.550 --> 00:28:10.349 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: There's a letter here which I've just thrown in to keep people on their toes, but there's a new partner communications pack for flood warnings, and since everybody is worried about floods, and we've got a Flood Action Week just about to start. 179 00:28:10.620 --> 00:28:14.509 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: I thought I'd throw this in here with the. 180 00:28:14.840 --> 00:28:17.189 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: When I publish this on the… 181 00:28:18.100 --> 00:28:20.749 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Knowledge base. I'll leave the address 182 00:28:20.990 --> 00:28:30.400 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Or rather, the link to the communications pack, so that people can download it if they wish, if you're living in an area that's got flood issues. 183 00:28:30.940 --> 00:28:32.070 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: New news? 184 00:28:33.210 --> 00:28:42.630 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And then, I thought this was really cheering. So, this young man, haha, started a company 10 years ago. 185 00:28:43.220 --> 00:28:45.750 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: With just himself and two other people. 186 00:28:46.050 --> 00:29:05.439 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And now look at it. In that 10 years, it's gone from nothing to 14 billion pounds a year in revenue, 13,000 employees covering eight countries, 12 million homes he's supplying. And I thought it was extraordinary. He's leasing 50,000 vehicles, which I had no idea that Octopus does that. 187 00:29:06.170 --> 00:29:17.069 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So the fascinating, I think, found this, and this, I have to admit, has got nothing to do with what we're doing at parish and town council level, but I just wanted this as a good news thing. 188 00:29:17.390 --> 00:29:28.150 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: is that Octopus is run in a completely different way, so he doesn't bother with an HR department, he doesn't bother with, bonuses and so forth. 189 00:29:28.290 --> 00:29:39.090 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: He just starts his Mondays with a meeting with people to discuss what happened last week and what's happening this week and where are we going, which he calls his left brain. 190 00:29:39.450 --> 00:29:51.379 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And then on Friday afternoons, he started originally by having a sort of a glass of wine session with his bosses, or what his, you know, the people in charge of his various sections, but then that spread. 191 00:29:51.380 --> 00:30:01.760 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And so now it's not a glass of wine system, it's a streaming system, but everybody is welcome. And they just say how things are going, what's going on in the company, all that sort of stuff. 192 00:30:01.900 --> 00:30:18.639 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And, he finds that it generates the most wonderful culture in the company, and that the people generally wake up saying, how do I drive the company's mission, rather than that, what have I got to do to get a bonus or to get promoted, which could be at the expense of 193 00:30:18.680 --> 00:30:26.020 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Some other division, or some other person. He's really driving a… Attitude of… 194 00:30:27.240 --> 00:30:39.240 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: what can we do to improve everybody's situation, rather than just our own individual one. So I thought that was a nice touch to put into a company. And if no one's had any dealings with Octopus. 195 00:30:39.380 --> 00:30:42.510 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: They are the most wonderful company to deal with. 196 00:30:43.980 --> 00:30:47.599 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So… Last piece of good news, 197 00:30:48.220 --> 00:31:02.110 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: There's a vast amount of interest going on now in starting up more nuclear reactors, including small modular reactors for sort of just the town level rather than entire country level that you see here. 198 00:31:02.440 --> 00:31:19.760 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And the big problem with nuclear, of course, is what you do with all the radioactive, used fuel and all the other stuff that comes out that is dangerous, and has to be tucked away for hundreds of thousands of years. Well, guess what? The scientists have come up with a new way. 199 00:31:20.090 --> 00:31:30.599 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: of working with the way that they create fuel rods and so forth, you can reduce that hundreds of thousands just to a mere century or two. 200 00:31:30.980 --> 00:31:32.810 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So, the… the big… 201 00:31:33.150 --> 00:31:43.210 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: underground storage depots that they're building. I think Finland has just opened the first one, although they're keeping it just for Finland at the moment. They may well… 202 00:31:43.400 --> 00:31:48.799 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Open it up to the rest of Europe, who knows, maybe even the United Kingdom. 203 00:31:48.910 --> 00:31:49.660 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: But 204 00:31:50.020 --> 00:32:00.690 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: I think having radiation that deteriorates or downgrades itself over a few hundred years rather than a few hundred thousand years has to be a good thing. 205 00:32:01.850 --> 00:32:07.610 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So that's my good news for the day. I'm going to finish sharing my screen. 206 00:32:07.910 --> 00:32:12.500 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And come back to see if anybody has any thoughts, questions, or interests. 207 00:32:13.770 --> 00:32:14.760 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And… 208 00:32:17.360 --> 00:32:33.659 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: I'm just reading Pam Rosling's, thought. You're absolutely right. One always hopes that some new government is going to change the way that we price electricity, but you're absolutely right. Linking it to gas is a daft idea. 209 00:32:33.980 --> 00:32:37.580 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And somewhere, somewhere, we'll hopefully change it. 210 00:32:38.090 --> 00:32:40.620 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: But thank you, Pam. That's very true. 211 00:32:43.900 --> 00:32:52.650 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So, I like the idea of just being able to create all that wetland in my back garden by slamming into my downpipes. I thought it was a great idea. 212 00:32:55.770 --> 00:33:01.820 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Well, we stunned everybody rigid. Oh, Stuart, good day, well done. You've come to rescue me. Thank you. 213 00:33:02.260 --> 00:33:04.580 . Dunmow Essex: I'm not sure. Can you hear me? 214 00:33:04.580 --> 00:33:06.650 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Yes, yep, your system is working. 215 00:33:06.650 --> 00:33:10.930 . Dunmow Essex: I'm not sure what's, going on with my… the camera works. 216 00:33:11.270 --> 00:33:14.790 . Dunmow Essex: I'm assuming it might be a Zoom problem. 217 00:33:15.300 --> 00:33:21.349 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: When you logged in, we were seeing, I was seeing the, circular, whatever it is, it goes round and round. 218 00:33:21.350 --> 00:33:21.830 . Dunmow Essex: Yes. 219 00:33:21.830 --> 00:33:23.500 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Yeah. 220 00:33:23.500 --> 00:33:26.409 . Dunmow Essex: Anyway, I'll check it out after we've finished. 221 00:33:29.060 --> 00:33:39.060 . Dunmow Essex: It strikes me, though, that there are all these fantastic things going on around the world. There must be thousands of groups. 222 00:33:39.160 --> 00:33:44.729 . Dunmow Essex: Working on tackling the climate and environment. 223 00:33:45.200 --> 00:33:47.849 . Dunmow Essex: Crisis that we've got these days. 224 00:33:48.020 --> 00:33:55.500 . Dunmow Essex: I'm just worried about the time and the scale of all this. The Keeling curve is still rising. 225 00:33:55.820 --> 00:33:59.459 . Dunmow Essex: There seems to be a lot of forces. 226 00:33:59.960 --> 00:34:04.480 . Dunmow Essex: Dedicated to, business as usual. 227 00:34:04.870 --> 00:34:12.060 . Dunmow Essex: And I'm thinking of the fossil fuel companies who are hell-bent on 228 00:34:12.190 --> 00:34:15.460 . Dunmow Essex: Extracting more, and obviously burning more. 229 00:34:15.650 --> 00:34:21.750 . Dunmow Essex: The mining companies who are hell-bent on extraction. 230 00:34:23.340 --> 00:34:26.480 . Dunmow Essex: How are we gonna reverse the… 231 00:34:27.320 --> 00:34:33.070 . Dunmow Essex: desire of the multinationals to carry on doing what they're doing. 232 00:34:34.370 --> 00:34:40.480 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Well, in times past, Stuart, I've suggested that we need to start a revolution and say. 233 00:34:40.620 --> 00:34:54.220 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: the way in which modern countries are governed is not fit for purpose. We need to change it, because if you've got a system whereby the people that make the most noise in lobbying are the ones that get listened to. 234 00:34:54.219 --> 00:35:07.140 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: then we need to change the system, because that's… it just doesn't work. It produces exactly the problem that you're saying, that the money… the people with the money and this interest in retaining the status quo are behaving much more 235 00:35:07.520 --> 00:35:21.249 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: power than the rest of us, who'd rather see things not according to the status quo. And it didn't help that I think this morning, Kemi Badenoch has announced she's going to shut down the Environment Agency. So, you know. 236 00:35:21.390 --> 00:35:27.060 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: We're living amongst people who have no competence to be 237 00:35:27.230 --> 00:35:30.220 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: leading us. So, I think, you know. 238 00:35:30.370 --> 00:35:54.340 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: I think… first, I had two major principles to advocate to everybody. The first thing is, in the end, everything comes back down to education. How you start teaching children what… how they think, how they vote, how they behave, how they do, is all determined by what we teach them. So you've got to get education right. I mean, we've got a long way to go there. And then the second thing is to throw out the scoundrels who are in power at the moment, because 239 00:35:54.440 --> 00:35:56.389 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: They're not fit for the purpose. 240 00:35:57.790 --> 00:36:02.170 . Dunmow Essex: No, I'm well aware of Frank's comments last week. 241 00:36:02.420 --> 00:36:12.189 . Dunmow Essex: Saying there are so many other issues, on people's minds at the moment. Climate change and the environment seems to have. 242 00:36:13.220 --> 00:36:14.900 . Dunmow Essex: Dropped off the radar. 243 00:36:15.600 --> 00:36:16.880 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Well. 244 00:36:18.430 --> 00:36:25.539 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: I think you have to sort of stand back, Stuart, and say, where are we at the moment in terms of 245 00:36:25.540 --> 00:36:38.549 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: the number of people who are getting upset and are thinking about it and are trying to make a change, compared to how many there were back in, you know, the 1960s, when Rachel Carson was writing The Silent Spring. 246 00:36:38.550 --> 00:36:46.830 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: I think we've come a long way. Whether we'll get fast enough, I think, is a very open and dangerous question, but 247 00:36:47.040 --> 00:36:55.569 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: All I can say is I think we're dedicating our lives to doing something about it, aren't we? And the question is, how do we get more people to do it? 248 00:36:55.570 --> 00:36:56.820 . Dunmow Essex: Yes, yes. 249 00:36:56.820 --> 00:37:00.689 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And working at a national or global level, 250 00:37:01.110 --> 00:37:10.559 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: I think we just have to throw our support behind anybody who's thinking big, like Octopus Energy. I just throw that in as a casual example. So… 251 00:37:10.830 --> 00:37:12.500 . Dunmow Essex: Okay, thanks. 252 00:37:13.160 --> 00:37:15.000 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Craig, your turn, please. 253 00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:22.240 Frank Deas, Killearn: Thank you. I think, first of all, just picking up on Stuart's points, I agree that we're in a very crowded marketplace. 254 00:37:22.380 --> 00:37:38.480 Frank Deas, Killearn: I think, and and this is something I flagged when we had the the chat from NEB talking to us, NEB briefing is superb. It hopefully will grow grassroots people responding to their parliamentarians and their councillors saying, we are concerned about this, we need to do something about this. 255 00:37:38.690 --> 00:37:48.650 Frank Deas, Killearn: Because there is still this massive mismatch between what politicians think they need to do to get votes and what what we actually believe they should be doing. 256 00:37:48.780 --> 00:38:03.769 Frank Deas, Killearn: I accept that, you know, revolution might work, but I think it would be slightly challenging. And I'm concerned that there are teams of people with black balaclavas at the ready who would love a revolution, but not necessarily for the same reasons we would. 257 00:38:03.770 --> 00:38:08.309 Frank Deas, Killearn: So I'm reluctant to go down that path. But I do think… 258 00:38:08.310 --> 00:38:24.439 Frank Deas, Killearn: We need to gently encourage NEB to recognise it is a political arena we're in now. You can't be apolitical when there are parties like Reform and the Conservatives and Restore who are saying climate's nonsense, we're going to wreck all this, we're not going to bother about it. 259 00:38:24.460 --> 00:38:25.880 Frank Deas, Killearn: We need to… 260 00:38:25.880 --> 00:38:45.580 Frank Deas, Killearn: Show the other parties, whether it's Lib Dems, Labour, Greens, SNP, whoever, that this is a way of winning votes. And you have to actually commit to that, because what we have at the moment is it's a real aspect that Labour, once it got into power, immediately dialed back in all its Green commitments because it was trying to out-reform reform, and that was just bizarre. 261 00:38:45.580 --> 00:38:48.560 Frank Deas, Killearn: But for some reason, that's the mess we find ourselves in. 262 00:38:48.640 --> 00:39:00.259 Frank Deas, Killearn: So I do think while while we strive individually to be apolitical and to say no, it's a we're a broad church and everyone's welcome to get involved in climate change, I think we're getting much nearer the stage where we've got to. 263 00:39:00.710 --> 00:39:25.399 Frank Deas, Killearn: nail our colours to the mast and say, look, if you believe in climate change, you can only vote for these two or three parties who said they're going to do something about it. There's no point in voting for anyone else because you'll only accelerate the destruction of the planet. That actually wasn't why I raised my hand, but just following on from Stuart's comment, why I raised my hand is the one I think doesn't get enough coverage. And it's not a recent good news story, but there's good work being done on it. 264 00:39:25.410 --> 00:39:26.990 Frank Deas, Killearn: is pumped hydro. 265 00:39:27.410 --> 00:39:40.589 Frank Deas, Killearn: So while I'm a big fan of the developments in batteries, either they rely on rare earth metals like lithium, they create their own pollutants downstream, there's all these sorts of problems with them, but pumped hydro is 266 00:39:41.080 --> 00:39:56.719 Frank Deas, Killearn: It's expensive initial infrastructure, but thereafter it's cheap and it's like 12 to 30 seconds. You can flick a switch and have massive amounts of energy generated. There's two good examples in Wales. There's a couple in Scotland with more being built in Scotland. 267 00:39:56.830 --> 00:40:01.769 Frank Deas, Killearn: We really have to get more of a push. The Lake District, I'm sure could… 268 00:40:01.770 --> 00:40:09.359 Frank Deas, Killearn: have space for some pumped hydro schemes, and they're the things that, in parallel with solar and wind. 269 00:40:09.360 --> 00:40:22.700 Frank Deas, Killearn: give us that flexibility and means that hopefully we may get to the stage of Pam's point of saying we decouple from gas because that emergency electricity won't have to be generated by gas, it can be generated by pump hydro. 270 00:40:23.890 --> 00:40:24.660 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Right. 271 00:40:25.290 --> 00:40:26.860 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Excellent. 272 00:40:27.660 --> 00:40:33.609 . Dunmow Essex: I would just like to say there are sodium ion batteries coming on stream now, grid scale. 273 00:40:35.130 --> 00:40:39.110 . Dunmow Essex: Which don't use lithium or cobalt. 274 00:40:40.090 --> 00:40:42.100 . Dunmow Essex: And they should be a lot cheaper. 275 00:40:43.830 --> 00:40:53.350 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Well, I think that's part of the… what I was hoping that these little sessions would generate, is the news of all the developments that are taking place, hopefully in good news. 276 00:40:53.840 --> 00:41:08.329 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So, thank you. I did have a question for Frank, which was, the pumped hydro, how long does the lake at the top of the mountain last before it's finished generating electricity? And it is much more of a short-term thing, isn't it? 277 00:41:10.080 --> 00:41:29.570 Frank Deas, Killearn: I think it depends on the capacity. Yes, how big is your reservoir? Some are… they've managed to find topography that allows them to have comparatively big locks or lakes halfway up a mountain, so you don't have necessarily the full gravity, but you've got a bigger capacity. But yes, you will need… 278 00:41:29.570 --> 00:41:34.240 Frank Deas, Killearn: If you, if you, if you suddenly had Months of, of 279 00:41:34.340 --> 00:41:43.879 Frank Deas, Killearn: volcanic dark clouds and and no no solar, then we would begin to run out of electricity. But we'd begin to run out of a lot of things if that happens, I think. 280 00:41:44.430 --> 00:41:52.560 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: But you also have an issue with pumped water of where's the water coming from as we run out of it. Yes, but thank you. 281 00:41:53.160 --> 00:42:03.629 Frank Deas, Killearn: So I just mentioned Pam Sue, my apologies for mumbling. It was NEB, the National Emergency Briefing I was trying to refer to rather than NEP. 282 00:42:04.330 --> 00:42:19.640 Frank Deas, Killearn: But it was the National Emergency Briefing, which is a really good way of mobilising community groups and getting them thinking about it and getting them writing to their MPs, but is trying very hard to be apolitical, perhaps, I think, to a level that's unhelpful going forward. Thanks. 283 00:42:21.230 --> 00:42:22.740 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Ken, your turn, please. 284 00:42:22.740 --> 00:42:26.189 Ken Huggins north Dorset parish cllr: Yes, you've answered some of the points I was going to make. 285 00:42:26.460 --> 00:42:51.290 Ken Huggins north Dorset parish cllr: The People's Emergency Briefing, which has come out of the NEB. I've been to 13 of them now. I've organized one in our village hall, which is happening in a couple of weeks' time. I'm seeing people signing up to that that I didn't even know existed in the village. So it is drawing more and more people in. There have been over 3,000 showings so far, and it's beginning to expand. The more people who see it, the more people want other people to see it. And it's a fantastic way of being non-political. 286 00:42:51.600 --> 00:43:06.559 Ken Huggins north Dorset parish cllr: But getting people to realize, actually, we do have a major problem, so when they see people like Kemi Bednock stand up and say, they'll realize, that's absolute nonsense. I'm not voting for an organization that believes in that kind of philosophy. So, I think it is, although they're apolitical. 287 00:43:07.120 --> 00:43:25.800 Ken Huggins north Dorset parish cllr: I think they are very much pointing the way towards the political people who are actually aware of what's going on with the climate, and who realize we do need to pay attention, so we need to educate people. Educating people with a PEB is brilliant. What it's doing for me is it's motivating people to actually prod the MPs 288 00:43:25.810 --> 00:43:40.660 Ken Huggins north Dorset parish cllr: see enough people are interested in it, and think, oh, actually, do you know what? This is a vote winner. And I think when the politicians realize this is actually a vote winner, then they will have the courage to stand up and do what's needed. So, yeah, just a few… a few comments there on the PB. I think it's brilliant. 289 00:43:40.660 --> 00:44:03.890 Ken Huggins north Dorset parish cllr: It's really slow. And to answer your point, Graham, yes, education, but we need to educate the adults. We don't have time to educate the children and for them to grow up and then find the solutions for us, which is my worry about people saying, oh, we've just got to teach the kids how to, what to worry about. What the kids can do, of course, just very briefly, last moment, is to pester their parents. They're very good at pester power. So, you know, why are we doing this? Why haven't we got an electric car? Whatever. 290 00:44:04.040 --> 00:44:05.930 Ken Huggins north Dorset parish cllr: Okay, that's it. I'll shut up. 291 00:44:06.440 --> 00:44:16.900 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Well, no, I think you're right, but you raise a point which I've run into here, which is when we showed our People's Emergency Briefing, we brought the local MP in. 292 00:44:16.900 --> 00:44:29.960 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And he said, this is brilliant, and I will make lots of noise about it in Parliament. He said, but most MPs are already aware of these issues, which is total claptrap, and I'm not quite sure 293 00:44:29.960 --> 00:44:48.100 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: In a public space, I wasn't prepared to tell my MP that he was talking total claptrap, but I am going to go and see him and say, you're talking total claptrap, because he's a conservative, and it's his party that just said there is no such problem, you don't need to worry about it. So… Yeah. 294 00:44:48.100 --> 00:44:55.150 Ken Huggins north Dorset parish cllr: Yeah, to answer… sorry, to answer that point, Graham, I had, so our MP, local MP, he's a Conservative. 295 00:44:55.230 --> 00:45:04.839 Ken Huggins north Dorset parish cllr: He came to the first couple of showings that I was at for the PEB. He was very much, no, no, we can't, you know, what's the point? The government can't do this, can't have this national televised showing, et cetera, et cetera. 296 00:45:04.840 --> 00:45:28.540 Ken Huggins north Dorset parish cllr: He's changed his mind because he listened to the discussions afterwards and he realized that people are genuinely concerned about and a growing number of them. He has changed his mind. He's now signed to to back that the government should do and they don't want to show the the film. They don't want the government showing the film. They want the government to do a national briefing of their own with their own specialist saying this is what's happening. This is what we need to do and this is why you need to vote for us. So yeah, it is 297 00:45:28.640 --> 00:45:50.610 Ken Huggins north Dorset parish cllr: it is actually having an effect on the Conservatives. So I was at… one where I was at recently, the, the Conservative MP, unfortunately, was invited to stand up at the very beginning of the end of the film, the conversation that followed it. He was invited to stand up, and he eventually… he just waded straight into, oh, conservatism includes the word conserve, and we are looking after the environment, and et cetera, et cetera. So… 298 00:45:51.000 --> 00:45:54.879 Ken Huggins north Dorset parish cllr: When I got a chance to speak, you'll be surprised, but I did stand up and speak. 299 00:45:55.270 --> 00:46:04.790 Ken Huggins north Dorset parish cllr: I just pointed out the very first thing I said was, it's deeply regrettable that this conversation started with a political statement, and that got a round of applause from most of the room. 300 00:46:04.790 --> 00:46:05.150 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: All right. 301 00:46:05.150 --> 00:46:06.340 Ken Huggins north Dorset parish cllr: So there you go. 302 00:46:08.670 --> 00:46:10.330 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Gary, your turn, please. 303 00:46:13.610 --> 00:46:20.820 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Hi. Yeah, so I was thinking about this, and I was thinking, like, you know, I think… That… 304 00:46:21.010 --> 00:46:31.149 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: One big change I would like to see, and I'd like to see governments do, that would make, I think, make a big difference, is I think they should start taxing fossil fuels at 100%. 305 00:46:31.780 --> 00:46:45.580 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: I think it's ridiculous this day and age that we've got people making money out of producing fossil fuels and burning it and causing all the problems that we're having and adding to it. So I'd like to see government step up and say, okay. 306 00:46:45.840 --> 00:46:57.599 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: You're not going to make money if you want to use these fuels in the future. You need to move away from them. It will encourage companies to move away from using these fossil fuels and move them into renewables. It'll encourage them to do that. 307 00:46:57.760 --> 00:47:15.889 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: the money they can raise from this, they can use to undo some of the damage that's been done, of course, you know, not all of it, but at least it'll be go… some help. So I just think, you know, we can get… if governments were, like, brave enough to actually step up and make this kind of decision, I think it would have an absolutely massive effect and be a real, real benefit. 308 00:47:17.260 --> 00:47:18.050 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: I think. 309 00:47:18.400 --> 00:47:23.260 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: The first issue that pops to my mind when you say something like that is that. 310 00:47:23.650 --> 00:47:31.169 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: I'm sure that the taxes that the government raises on fuels is a major part of their income. 311 00:47:31.310 --> 00:47:41.629 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: You know, you look at the price of petrol in this country compared to, say, what used to be the price of petrol in the United States, the huge difference in cost was the taxes. 312 00:47:41.750 --> 00:47:51.130 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And the government is taking a major part of its income from taxes on fossil fuels. So what would you do if you put. 313 00:47:51.130 --> 00:47:52.029 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Sorry, Graham. 314 00:47:52.030 --> 00:47:52.820 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: He's out of business. 315 00:47:53.100 --> 00:47:57.300 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: I'm talking about taxing the profits. 316 00:47:57.440 --> 00:48:00.489 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So these companies are still making huge profits. 317 00:48:01.000 --> 00:48:11.129 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: on top of everything else that's happening, and making, you know, huge bonuses, and all that kind of thing, and people getting huge, massive dividends out of it. People are making lots and lots of money out of this, that's why they keep doing it. Like. 318 00:48:11.290 --> 00:48:18.480 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Stuart was saying business as usual. That's what business as usual is all about. That's why they do it because it's it's worthwhile, you know. 319 00:48:18.890 --> 00:48:27.809 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Profits for fossil fuel companies at the moment are going through the roof, of course, because of everything that's going on in the world. I mean, the price of getting this stuff out of the ground hasn't changed. 320 00:48:28.310 --> 00:48:39.510 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: the price that you're paying at the petrol pump has gone, you know, it's now record high. It doesn't cost the fossil fuel companies any more money to actually get this stuff out the ground, it's just… it's just supply and demand. 321 00:48:39.840 --> 00:48:50.080 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: that's causing massive, massive profits to fossil fuel companies, and while they're still getting these massive profits, there's no incentive at all to move away from them. We know that BP tried 322 00:48:50.410 --> 00:49:07.880 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: a couple of decades ago to move more to renewables and stuff, and then they got absolutely hammered by shareholders, they got hammered by the market, because, you know, they weren't making the massive, wonderful profits that all the other fossil fuel companies were making, like Shell and that lot, so they had to row back on all that and kind of go… step away from it. 323 00:49:08.010 --> 00:49:14.949 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So like you're saying, you know, if you can start saying, okay, you can keep doing this, but you won't make any profit from it. 324 00:49:15.090 --> 00:49:18.470 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: But, you know, you know, we'll support you in terms of, like. 325 00:49:19.160 --> 00:49:30.830 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: paying for it and getting money for it, but you won't actually be able to profit from it, not massively anyway, you know, not exceptional profits. You can, like, make a couple of percent or whatever. 326 00:49:31.190 --> 00:49:38.090 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: But, you know, if you go into renewables and stuff, then you'll be making like 10% profit and whatever. What are the companies going to do? They're going to go where the money is. 327 00:49:38.810 --> 00:49:39.470 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Yep. 328 00:49:39.470 --> 00:49:43.049 . Dunmow Essex: But a lot of the money is, pension funds. 329 00:49:43.890 --> 00:49:53.290 . Dunmow Essex: And I think if you reduce the profits of the fossil fuel companies, a lot of the pension funds would be up in arms. 330 00:49:53.790 --> 00:50:03.440 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Yeah, absolutely. But they move on to other things, Stuart. That's what we're saying. You know, they're going into fossil fuels, these pension funds and stuff, because that's where the big margins are. That's where they're making the money. 331 00:50:03.520 --> 00:50:16.140 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: If you say, you know, well, there's not going to be money in this in the future. There's no point in investing your pension funds into this. Invest it into things that aren't causing climate change. Invest it into renewable energy schemes. 332 00:50:16.900 --> 00:50:19.700 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Very interesting. Yeah, good points. Thank you. 333 00:50:19.980 --> 00:50:21.210 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: John, please. 334 00:50:26.760 --> 00:50:29.410 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: At the moment you're you're still muted, John. 335 00:50:33.920 --> 00:50:35.710 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Hasn't cleared yet. 336 00:50:37.110 --> 00:50:40.279 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Does pushing your spacebar work on this keyboard? 337 00:50:41.780 --> 00:50:42.670 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: No. 338 00:50:49.950 --> 00:50:51.619 Ken Huggins north Dorset parish cllr: Can you unmute him, Graham? 339 00:50:52.260 --> 00:50:54.860 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: I can't unmute him, I can 340 00:50:55.380 --> 00:50:59.109 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: I think I can mute it, but I think I can't mute it. Let me just have a look and see. 341 00:51:09.070 --> 00:51:10.330 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Maybe I can. 342 00:51:17.630 --> 00:51:25.880 John Payne: Got it. Yeah. Can you hear me? Yes. Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I'm on my iPhone. My computer's gone off. 343 00:51:26.280 --> 00:51:34.890 John Payne: I put something on chat, which are our own experiences in our community. I think that the only way we're going to manage 344 00:51:35.520 --> 00:51:38.029 John Payne: The future is by crisis. 345 00:51:38.210 --> 00:51:40.310 John Payne: In other words, confronting crises. 346 00:51:40.310 --> 00:51:41.279 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: I see, yes. 347 00:51:41.280 --> 00:51:42.000 John Payne: And then. 348 00:51:42.290 --> 00:51:51.469 John Payne: Finding a way to work through them. I don't think there's ever going to be a rational decision by politicians. 349 00:51:51.630 --> 00:51:57.080 John Payne: By nations, it's… Just too divisive. 350 00:51:57.420 --> 00:52:00.850 John Payne: I don't… I'd be interested to know if anybody agrees with me, and… 351 00:52:01.270 --> 00:52:09.080 John Payne: Our community has been through so much, the flooding, the tornado, which was terrifying, I can tell you. And. 352 00:52:09.650 --> 00:52:12.859 John Payne: The closure of the roads, the main A40 into Wales. 353 00:52:13.180 --> 00:52:19.049 John Payne: Which we had something to do with, and also the fact that our village has been cut off for 14 weeks. 354 00:52:19.180 --> 00:52:22.000 John Payne: I'd be very interested to know what people think about that. 355 00:52:24.710 --> 00:52:41.200 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Well, I think you're absolutely right. I mean, human nature is that nothing gets done until there's a disaster, and then everybody says never again. And of course, it happens probably again 20 years later when they've all forgotten. But I agree the big things get done when there's been a disaster. 356 00:52:41.460 --> 00:52:42.410 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And. 357 00:52:42.640 --> 00:52:54.730 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And I think, although you're showing up first, Frank, as being an answer, actually, I think Ken was raising his hand before he managed to hit the button, so… Would you mind giving it to Ken? 358 00:52:54.730 --> 00:53:06.840 Ken Huggins north Dorset parish cllr: No. Alright. Thanks for that, Graham. I, I take your point, John, and I think we are very much headed down that road that we will deal with crises. That's what will wake people up when it's a permanent, you know, something that's happened to your community, for example. 359 00:53:06.840 --> 00:53:17.109 Ken Huggins north Dorset parish cllr: And dealing with flooding, and that's becoming an issue for our village, because we've been cut off with all the roads coming in on occasions now. But I think the problem is that 360 00:53:17.110 --> 00:53:27.470 Ken Huggins north Dorset parish cllr: the more money you end up spending firefighting crises, the less money you have to spend, and energy you have to spend, and resources you have to spend to put into these solutions, the long-term solutions. So. 361 00:53:27.900 --> 00:53:32.569 Ken Huggins north Dorset parish cllr: I agree with you, we need to be looking long term, but I have a horrible feeling it's crises. 362 00:53:32.960 --> 00:53:38.750 Ken Huggins north Dorset parish cllr: And we'll just be firefighting and, you know, that's going to drain our resources horrendously. 363 00:53:39.460 --> 00:54:00.079 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: I think that some bright spark that will point out that in due course, the money you're spending on fixing the problem when it happens, like, you know, repairing the houses from the floods, and repairing the houses from the tornadoes, and so forth, eventually they'll work out that it's cheaper to put the money into solving the cause in the first place. 364 00:54:00.260 --> 00:54:07.880 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: But I absolutely agree with the point made that until there's a crisis, not much is going to happen, or at least not enough is going to happen. 365 00:54:08.730 --> 00:54:12.320 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Frank, can we move to your idea now that you've been displaced? 366 00:54:12.320 --> 00:54:17.569 Frank Deas, Killearn: No problem at all. I agree with what people are saying. I think, though, there is that challenge. 367 00:54:18.070 --> 00:54:30.809 Frank Deas, Killearn: In their desperation to hit house building targets, there's still planning approval for building houses and floodplains. So we're not really reacting to the crisis, we're actually piling up the problems for generations yet to come. 368 00:54:30.810 --> 00:54:49.189 Frank Deas, Killearn: I think the other thing, and I think I mentioned it on this forum before, when we did one of our People's Emergency Briefings, I asked one of the participants a couple of weeks later what his thoughts had been and what he thought about it, and he was in full survivalist mode. He recognised the crisis, but he was stockpiling his water and his fuel and his food. 369 00:54:49.550 --> 00:54:58.679 Frank Deas, Killearn: So it's how we take the things that John described and those sorts of crises and use them to galvanize community action and 370 00:54:58.690 --> 00:55:13.720 Frank Deas, Killearn: climate adaptation and mitigation, and not just swap straight into pure survivalism of, I'm okay, my family's okay, and to with everyone else. Because unfortunately, the culture that pervades at the moment is sadly heading in that direction. 371 00:55:15.700 --> 00:55:28.660 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Well, except that, yes, I think that when it's a big issue, people do tend to club together. I mean, we found in COVID that the communities are all helping each other out left, right, and center. So hopefully this will happen and that. 372 00:55:28.750 --> 00:55:38.999 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Because it's just a little tornado in Wales, and we don't pay much attention to it when you compare it to the cyclones that are clobbering, I don't know, the South China Sea or something. 373 00:55:39.000 --> 00:55:52.629 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: But yes, we're all in agreement that it is the way that things get done, is when there's been a crisis, which was foreseeable, but no one paid any attention to the soothsayers, the people who were making the forecasts. 374 00:55:53.980 --> 00:55:57.800 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: There's a note from Sue asking if… 375 00:55:57.800 --> 00:56:15.429 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: speakers, they have mostly have put where they are, but those of you who've not yet said where you're from, if you could make that change, that would help, please. It's achieved by touching the top three little buttons on the… not buttons, the dots on the top right-hand corner of your screen. 376 00:56:15.430 --> 00:56:18.150 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: If you click on that, you get the opportunity to rename. 377 00:56:19.170 --> 00:56:27.749 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So, do we have any other comments? No. 378 00:56:28.310 --> 00:56:39.929 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: In that case, it remains for me to say thank you all so much for coming. There was a comment, so I beg your pardon, there was an early comment, wasn't there, in the chat? 379 00:56:42.600 --> 00:56:46.240 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: the… It's. 380 00:56:46.370 --> 00:56:57.279 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Why is the government still giving subsidies to livestock farmers? Well, I think that another of those points that has to be changed when it's better when people can afford. 381 00:56:57.630 --> 00:57:02.850 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Beef, they'll go for beef, but when it becomes unaffordable, then they'll have to go to plant-based. 382 00:57:04.240 --> 00:57:11.869 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: And… And I do… I agree that I think it's a scandal that the. 383 00:57:11.910 --> 00:57:26.440 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: housing rules do not require new houses to be built with new energy systems or built into them. We actually have a threatened new development going up here in Bembridge, where all the houses have got 384 00:57:26.470 --> 00:57:33.130 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: good insulation, they've all got solar cells, and they've all got heat pumps. 385 00:57:33.250 --> 00:57:37.519 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So… Somebody, at least, is being, 386 00:57:37.800 --> 00:57:44.379 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: responsible and careful. But I grant you, though, that when there's no need for 387 00:57:44.550 --> 00:57:54.079 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: It not to be a law, then you have to go back to your lobbying, and it's the people who lobby for the status quo rather than those who say, yes, it's a very good idea. 388 00:57:54.130 --> 00:58:07.479 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: We should do it. That's what government's for, isn't it? You need to clobber your MP. Lots of MP clobbering going on around here, I can see. So, next week, we have a… 389 00:58:07.620 --> 00:58:13.560 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Topic which I'd be very pleased to tell you what it is if I could remember it. Bear with me a second. 390 00:58:18.270 --> 00:58:23.899 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: It's me, Graham. I'm talking about creating a carbon footprint calculations for small towns. 391 00:58:23.900 --> 00:58:29.929 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: There you go, yes, Gary, thank you. I just found it on my screen. How splendid. 392 00:58:30.380 --> 00:58:41.499 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So that will be a very, very worthwhile discussion, I'm sure, because everybody wants to know how on earth we get our baseline data into place. 393 00:58:41.710 --> 00:58:53.390 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So, thank you for that, Gary. We're looking forward to it. I hope that you'll all be showing up next week, and look forward to seeing you. Until then, have a great time, and don't get blown away, washed away, or swum away. 394 00:58:53.580 --> 00:59:08.690 Ken Huggins north Dorset parish cllr: Thank you for keeping this group going, Graham. I've not been able to attend for a few months now, but it's nice to come back in. It's disappointed to see how few people have turned up, but I think you are competing with a huge number of other meetings that I can attend as well. So there's a lot of environmental stuff kicking off at the moment. 395 00:59:08.910 --> 00:59:09.360 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: meet. 396 00:59:09.360 --> 00:59:11.819 Ken Huggins north Dorset parish cllr: And lots of people all around doing it. 397 00:59:11.820 --> 00:59:18.239 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Quite a lot doing it at noon on Wednesdays, I know, but I'm not quite sure what else you can find. 398 00:59:18.240 --> 00:59:20.219 Ken Huggins north Dorset parish cllr: Thanks for sticking with it anyway. 399 00:59:20.220 --> 00:59:23.069 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: We'll keep going. Take care all, bye-bye. 400 00:59:23.070 --> 00:59:23.630 Ken Huggins north Dorset parish cllr: Okay. *** #### Markdown copy of presentation: ## More Good News – #3 **By Graham Stoddart-Stones**\ **7 October 2026** *Markdown transcription of the PowerPoint presentation, retaining the original content and organising it into sections for easier reading.* *** ### 1. Growing Liberty [Watch the YouTube video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop\&v=ddmuALsSEfQ) **An 11-minute video of enthusiasm!** *** ### 2. Innovation Matters Enormously #### How We Are Getting Climate Change Wrong **By Dieter Helm** Don't confuse installing renewable generation with solving climate change. Putting solar panels on a village hall is worthwhile. But the ultimate objective isn't “more solar panels”; it's less carbon entering the atmosphere. That means a community should look first at demand: **Insulation → avoiding wasted heat → efficient appliances → appropriate heating → transport choices → local generation → storage/flexibility.** That fits remarkably well with the direction we've been discussing for your community climate work: don't emit the carbon in the first place before worrying about removing it afterwards. Helm subsequently developed another strand that is especially applicable locally: **natural capital**. Woodland, soils, wetlands, biodiversity and ecosystems are productive assets, not decorative extras. #### The Climate Action Hierarchy **Consume less carbon → use energy more efficiently → electrify what makes sense → generate clean energy → protect natural carbon stores → remove residual CO₂ only where necessary.** *** ### 3. Leaks Spotted Quickly * Leaks spotted quickly. * Not that expensive! *** ### 4. Iron-Air Batteries **The central question:** > Can we move surplus electricity from when nature supplies it to when people need it? Iron-air is potentially one part of a storage hierarchy: | Storage duration | Technology | | ---------------- | -------------------------------------- | | Seconds/minutes | Grid controls | | Hours | Lithium batteries | | Days | Iron-air / other long-duration storage | | Weeks/seasons | Hydrogen and other chemical storage | #### How Iron-Air Batteries Work Store renewable electricity by rusting iron — and recharge the battery by turning the rust back into iron. *** ### 5. The Falling Cost of Renewable Energy #### Changes Since 2010 Since 2010, the cost of electricity from: * **Solar PV** has fallen about **90%**. * **Onshore wind** has fallen about **70%**. * **Offshore wind** has fallen about **60%**. Battery storage costs fell **93% between 2010 and 2024**. #### Electricity Generation Costs – 2026 | Technology | Cost per kWh | | ------------- | ------------ | | Onshore wind | 2.25p | | Offshore wind | 5.9p | | Solar PV | 3.3p | | Nuclear | 18p | | Gas | 5p | #### UK Household Electricity * Electricity: approximately **26p/kWh** * Standing charge: approximately **£200 per annum** *These are the figures quoted in the presentation, not independently verified current estimates.* *** ### 6. Flood Action Week 2026 **12–18 October 2026** #### Environment Agency Communication **From:** Flood Resilience KSLES\ **Email:** \ **Sent:** 6 October 2026, 16:53\ **Subject:** Flood Action Week 2026 (12–18 October) – partner communications pack Dear Flood Wardens, As promised, please find some details below on how to access the partner communications pack for Flood Action Week 2026. #### Purpose of Flood Action Week The annual Flood Action Week aims to increase awareness of the risk of flooding and what to do to prepare. With the UK experiencing more frequent and intense extreme weather due to climate change, communities are being warned not to be complacent about the risk of flooding following this summer's dry weather. **Campaign dates: 12–18 October 2026.** *** ### 7. Octopus Energy – A Remarkable Growth Story #### From Start-up to £14 Billion in 10 Years The presentation highlights Octopus's growth: | Measure | Figure | | ------------------------ | -------------------------------- | | Company value | £14 billion | | Employees | 13,000 | | Countries | 8 | | Homes supplied | 12 million | | Electric vehicles leased | 50,000 | | Other activities | Supplies technology to utilities | #### Communications and Company Culture Octopus uses a distinctive internal communications approach: **Monday morning:** * Left-brain communication. **Friday afternoon:** * Right-brain communication. Both are delivered via streaming. #### Mission-Driven Thinking The question employees are encouraged to ask: > **“How do I drive the company's mission?”** Rather than: > “How do I get myself promoted?” *** ### 8. Closing Material The presentation contains additional visual material, including slides without extractable text. The transcription above captures the readable text, but does not reproduce the photographs, graphics or other embedded visual elements. *** **Source:** *More Good News – #3*, 7 October 2026. *** --- # Agent Instructions This documentation is published with GitBook. GitBook is the documentation platform designed so that both humans and AI agents can read, navigate, and reason over technical content effectively. Learn more at gitbook.com. ## Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation by asking a question. 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