ERA events

Saturday 5 October at Henry Warren Hall, Nyewood, 9.45am - 1pm

Please join us in the first Arun and Chichester Good Food Fortnight for a demonstrations and hands on cooking workshop.

Learn to roll sushi, make Korean pickles and an edamame bean dressing. Miso soup demonstrations plus tasting experiences.

Fun workshop for all levels and anyone interested in exploring plant-based Asian cuisine flavours and expanding their culinary horizons.

Email LuLu: luxorganic2023&gmail.com

Thursday 24 October at Henry Warren Hall, Nywewood, 7pm

Parish council, district council, county council - who does what and how do they get it done? District Councillor Tim O'Kelly is coming to explain how local government works and suggest how we can interact more effectively with them so that our viewpoints are best represented.

Everyone welcome.

Please car share.

Thursday 7 November at Henry Warren, Nyewood, 7.30pm

Our November talk, the last in person until spring, will be given by Dr Harold Lovell, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Science and Health at Portsmouth University.

Climate warming is having a dramatic effect on wildfires across the globe. This talk will outline the fundamental conditions required for wildfires to take hold and spread, and will explore the impact that climate change is having on fire regimes. Dr Lovell will be a focus on Arctic wildfires, and in particular the increasing incidence of fires in Greenland, a location that has traditionally been viewed as being largely inflammable. The talk will also consider the changing nature of fire risk in our immediate surroundings of southern England.

16 May 2024

We welcomed Angela Ward, South Downs National Park Authority (SDNPA) Ranger for the River Rother, to complete our trio of talks focussing on the Rother and its many issues.

Angela began by introducing us to the SDNPS Corporate Plan, which outlines high level targets covering nature recovery, climate action, and ‘a national park for all’, demonstrating a good deal of overlap with ERA’s own objectives.

Angela went on to introduce us to the Species Recovery Trust, an organisation that summarises the current environmental situation with the words, ‘Our Planet is poised on the edge of the sixth mass extinction: There are over nine-hundred native species in the UK which are currently classed as under threat with several hundreds more known to be in significant decline. The countryside is now bereft of many species which were a familiar sight a mere generation ago.’ And due to that, ‘The primary aim of our work is to remove 50 species from the edge of extinction in the UK by the year 2050, both by targeting the species and the habitats they live in.’ They provide botanical and ecological training across England.

Part of supporting endangered species, or species currently lost from the South Downs, involves tackling Invasive non-native species (INNS) and Angela had kindly brought ERA a copy of their publication ‘Invasive Non-Native Species: Discover how to identify and control non-native species which are causing damage in the South Downs National Park’ which gives information on what they have classified as the Top 10 Most Wanted species. One of these is Himalayan Balsam which Angela feels passionate about tackling in the Rother valley – as does ERA!

INNS not only covers plants, with mink being a significant issue locally. Where you have mink you do not have our native water voles. SDNPA is working with others from East Anglia and the Meon Valley where mink have been successfully eradicated as well as with those working a little north of us who are trying to eradicate them from the River Wey. The Waterlife Recovery Trust do training relevant to this.

Angela finished by referring to ERA’s work organising Himalayan Balsam pulling sessions and asked that we use an app called INNS Mapper both to identify areas where Himalayan Balsam is found and areas we have worked in to get rid of it. This is something anyone can do and well worth it when out for a walk as the first step to getting rid of the problem is to know where it is.

Please see our Events page, our Facebook page and our Instagram posts to know where and when we will be out pulling Himalayan Balsam this year. It is both easy to do and extremely satisfying as one can make a real difference – especially if you work as part of a group. Please feel free to just turn up, or email us for further details. We will try to help with setting up car sharing for these events.

18 April 2024

We are grateful for the excellent talk given to us at Nyewood by David Elliott from the National Trust. He began by reminding us of some key findings from the latest State of Nature report, outlining some of the main issues of wildlife in the UK. Then he took us through some of the specific problems at the Woolbeding Estate and finally introduced us to the National Trust's thinking as to how they might apply some new thinking to these issues. Some species might then be able to find their own way into the improved habitats but others may need to be specifically introduced. David's talk was enhanced by many beautiful photographs of local wildlife and we all now hope to be seeing more and more of that local wildlife as the Woolbeding Reimagined project moves forward.

28 March 2024

Aimee began by telling us that she had recently read that the original name of the Rother had been a Saxon word meaning ‘clear and bright’ and shared with us a photograph of a tributary of the Rother near Empshott, where the river still manages to be clear and bright. Meanwhile recent heavy rain had made the Rother near Nyewood, where we were, distinctly mud coloured!

The Rother has many issues, not the least being that it is considered the most erodable river catchment in the UK, which leads to considerable levels of sediment which can contain many contaminants from road run-off and agricultural run-off, creating a long lasting legacy contamination. A further major issue is the number of weirs, sluice gates and other barriers to the free movement of the fish. For decades we have straightened the river so it will swiftly drain away rainwater, but now realise that we would be so much better off holding back that water to avoiding flooding further down.

Regarding road run-off, anything that wears down (such as tyres, break pads) will leave a fine layer of debris on the road, waiting to be rinsed off in the next downpour. Aimee told us that Dyson are working on a system which will collect tyre particals as they fly off the tyres.

ARRT is leading a project at Fittleworth Primary School to create various Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) such as rain gardens (also called rainscapes), and rain planters.

Aimee went on to outline the range of work ARRT is currently involved with.

Following the recent Rother Summit, hosted by the South Downs National Park Authority (and at which ERA was also represented), ARRT is now heading up the work to create a landscape scale, whole catchment action plan for the Rother to really turn things around.

ARRT is also running a project called Soil Smart, working with farmers to investigate the health of their soils and advise them as to how to improve them. Aimee gave a plug to the film Six Inches of Soil, and we were delighted to tell her that we have this film booked as one of our Great Big Green Week events!

Sluice gates have been removed at Ambersham to assess the impact of such actions as well as restoring an historical river loop around Ambersham, which should all work towards the fish having free passage over a greater length of the river.

Volunteers were recruited to help plant a hedge near a tributary of the Rother in Empshott where water flows down a sloped field, straight into the stream.

Aimee shared a surprising figure: there are some 92 Invasive Non-Native Species (INNS) within the catchment of the Rother but probably the one we know best is Himalayan Balsam. ERA will be heavily involved in more H.Balsam pulling this summer, as we were last summer, and 7 people signed up at this talk to be part of that work later in the evening – let us know if this satisfying and desperately needed work is something you would also like to get involved with.

A key message from Aimee was ‘Say it Louder’, it is clearly important to continue to develop our understanding of the problems that beset the River Rother, but once we have that understanding it must be communicated far and wide so that suitable actions can follow and people understand why those changes are beneficial. For example, we need to let our MPs know that we want the Environment Agency to be better funded and that we want the UK to catch up with some other countries with installing urban SuDs – both with respect to new developments but also retrofitting them elsewhere.

Our friends the beavers can also play a significant role and we need government to give the go-ahead to unfenced reintroductions of these ecosystem engineers, although they will need managing to protect certain areas such as farmer’s fields, and dams too near to roads which might then get flooded.

There are some 1600 septic tanks with the catchment and if all were properly maintained and renewed when necessary, this would not be much of a problem, but unfortunately that is not always the case.

In our gardens we can install more water butts (which actually was the very first practical action that ERA took back in 2020, placing a bulk order). One idea from a different talk was that we should empty our water butts when we know a storm is coming to create more storage space for the rain about to fall. Both the RHS and the National Garden Scheme have instructions for creating our own rain garden or rain planters.

Buy our food from local producers when possible to try to shorten those supply chains.

Give due consideration to the chemicals we use around the home, be it toiletries or cleaning products. Consider purchasing from a source such as Faith in Nature, which has chosen to have someone on their board solely to represent nature. The Good Shopping Guide website can provide lots of information about other suppliers.

Aimee finished by giving us thought to take away: We don’t need a few perfect environmentalists, we need a million imperfect ones.

Let us know if you are able to get out there and help, be it by becoming a river surveyor or by joining a group to go out Himalayan Balsam pulling – or maybe even both!?!

18 January 2024

An open sewer

January’s talk is part of ERA’s aim to go back to basics annually to take a wide-ranging look at where we are with climate. Ian Hawker returned to the group via Zoom to explain the science, the risks and what we urgently need to do.

Alongside mitigation, it will be essential to adjust to a hotter, less predictable climate. This is because humanity continues to treat the earth’s atmosphere like an ‘open sewer’, Ian said. Only about 16% of the energy we use comes from renewables.

Inevitably more areas of the world will become uninhabitable, increasing migration. In the UK agriculture and human health will be negatively affected. Food imports will become less reliable. Water supply will face significant difficulties, particularly in the south-east. Worldwide, ‘food shocks’ will increase. We need to produce more food, through farming and in our own gardens. We will be eating new types of food such as sea vegetables – different types of seaweed - and lab-grown meat.

There is a full write-up of Ian’s talk on our Articles page. Follow this link to see projections for warming by 2100 and to read about our government’s National Adaption Plans plus more on food and water, flooding, extreme heat events, public health, biodiversity and wildfires.

In conclusion the talk outlines what needs to be done to reduce all of these risks. Far more government leadership is key. There must be a vision for a climate adapted UK, coordinated delivery across government departments, a focus on all climate risks. Funding, regulations and market incentives to make change happen are all crucial, plus effective monitoring and progress reporting, local government involvement with sufficient finance, and public education.

If you missed this talk and would like to see a video recording of it, please email EcoRotherAction@outlook.com.

14 December 2023

Steve introduced himself as founder and director of Power For People, an organisation that describes itself as being ‘a not-for-profit organisation, campaigning for the UK to rapidly transition to 100% clean energy and for this to benefit local communities.’

With a background in parliamentary work, Steve understood the system of how new laws get passed i.e. draft an initial version which will then get tweaked as it works its way through the system until, if successful, becoming law. Steve knew that substantial representation does have an impact, and that the potential for community renewable energy to benefit local economies is currently being blocked by unfair regulations and hugely disproportionate costs. Power for People drafted the Local Electricity Bill and are campaigning for it to be made law. This would give small-scale renewable energy a massive boost by empowering communities to sell their energy directly to local people.

Steve needs the Bill to have sufficient support to get passed into law, and that is why he is happy to give talks such as this one. A charismatic opponent to the bill could equally serve to whip up negative feelings against the Bill.

As we transition away from oil and gas, the need for electricity will increase and we need an increasing amount of that to be coming from renewables, to be clean energy. The potential role of Community Energy, within this, is massive but as yet the term Community Energy is not defined in law. Community Energy England defines it as, ‘local people getting involved in electricity generation local to them’. It can also encompass acting to reduce energy usage, be that the energy heating our homes or used in transport etc.

Currently there are some 300 Community Energy groups in the UK, all small and predominantly volunteer run. They are achieving around 0.5% of UK electricity generation but their potential is significantly greater than that. With the right enabling policies, rules and regulations this could increase 20 fold.

Two examples of where the current system does not favour smaller scale local electricity generation are the low feed in tariffs when electricity is sold back into the grid, and the near impossibility of Community Energy groups qualifying as a licenced supplier as to be one of them one needs to have upwards of 200 000 customers. Without a licence the producer cannot sell their locally produced electricity to local people but have to sell to the big (licenced) energy companies where they receive a fraction of the real value.

So, what was the help Steve was hoping that he might have convinced us to give to this endeavour? He told us that nearly half of the House of Commons now back the Local Electricity Bill. This is due to the efforts of individuals and organisations from across the country. But they still need to bring more MPs on board and encourage supportive MPs to promote the Bill in parliament. Steve encouraged us to write to, or visit, our MP, to write to our local press or local council, but as a first step to sign the petition on their website. The same ‘Take Action’ section of the website offers support with writing to your MP etc. on this topic.

This was our first Zoom talk of this winter and the ensuing discussion continued for considerably longer than we had planned. We all felt we had learnt a lot about a very complex and fascinating subject and we wished Steve every luck with his critically important project.

16 November 2023

Mark Gaterell’s talk on sustainable buildings certainly provided us with much to think about and prompted those present to realise that there is a lot about the current systems that is not working as well as we might have assumed or as well as we need it to in a changing climate.

Mark started by making the point that sustainability is a loosely defined concept but critically is has to encompass leaving a positive legacy. By necessity the constraints of the environment must limit economic growth, a finite system cannot adjust to infinite growth. We need to aim at development rather than growth, qualitative improvement without quantitative increase.

When considering the CO2 emissions of the UK we need to take into consideration all of our ‘exported emissions’ i.e. the emissions created elsewhere, predominantly China, by the products that we then import. We cannot cite China’s emissions as being a problem without accepting responsibility for the emissions associated with our imported goods. Per head we import more CO2 than most countries in the world.

If everyone in the world chose to live as we do in the UK we would need 3 planet earths to provide our resources which implies we need to reduce what we consume – and rapidly!

80% of the housing stock that will be in existence in the UK by 2050 already exists but we have the coldest, oldest and leakiest houses in Europe.

Heating and lighting account for over half of the energy consumption of our houses. Understanding the thermal efficiency of our buildings is critical and yet, consistently, the predicted heat loss from new buildings underestimates the actual heat loss. Neither Building Regs nor EPCs are serving us well and both need rethinking. They have the potential to drive policy, but not in their current forms.

If we are to effectively adapt to the changes that climate change will bring we need to better understand how our buildings lose heat and how different insulation materials function in practice.

We need to be able to keep warm in cold weather, but increasingly we will need to be able to keep cool in increasingly hot summers. Heat waves lead to spikes in mortality. In the UK, overheating in buildings is expected, if not addressed, to cause some 4,500 premature deaths per year by 2050.

If new buildings had to be tested so that they proved their efficiency in practice, then it would become the developers/contractors who would carry the risk of poor performance rather than the owner/occupiers as at present – a mighty incentive to improve practice!

Alongside these considerations relating to new builds is the need for effective retrofitting of existing building stock. Companies such as Energie Sprong and Enerphitt are offering this kind of service in the UK. The Publicly Available Specifications (PAS) 2030, 2035 and 2038 (BSI) provide the basis for such retrofitting.

Mark summarised what he believes to be necessary priorities to make the building stock of the UK capable of providing for our needs in a changing climate as:

• Understanding actual energy performance is critical for meeting targets, ensuring we install appropriate technologies and building resilience to climate change

• Whole house testing, post construction/refurb, should be a requirement to shift risks of non-performance from homeowner to contractor/developer (BS 40101)

• Ensure the tools we use to guide and shape policy are fit for purpose (EPCs)

11 October 2023

(The following refers to West Sussex, and in places to the Chichester District)

Julie Silverson, an Event Initiative Assistant from West Sussex County Council, began her talk for ERA on 11 October by telling us that her husband often comments that she talks rubbish for a living – but in her highly interactive talk we all found we had plenty still to learn on the subject of sustainable waste disposal.

Reduce, Re-use, Recycle. Although much of Julie’s talk was about recycling she was keen to reinforce the message that creating less waste (reduce/re-use) has considerably greater impact on the environment than recycling, a message also central in ERA’s own mantra of 'Buy Less, Use Less, Waste Less'. We have to think about waste at the point of purchase – avoid impulse buys that we probably did not need in the first place, consider how the item is packaged, consider buying second-hand, consider taking the item we are replacing to one of the local repair cafés for fixing and maybe you can get another few years out of it! Buy thoughtfully.

Better communication within our own communities can lead to less waste through better communication of local opportunities e.g  Free Shop Friday in Petersfield, local Buy Nothing pages on Facebook etc.

Highlights from the talk:

·       West Sussex is getting close to achieving its target of 55% of its waste being recycled

·       40% of the average rubbish bin is food waste, of which 27% is edible

·       Up to 59% of the contents of the average waste bin in West Sussex does not need to be there

·       There are no Council owned open landfill sites in West Sussex

·       Black bin contents go to the MBT (the Brookhurst Wood Mechanical Biological Treatment facility)

·       Only 4% of what we put in our black rubbish bins ends up in the Biffa landfill site post-processing through the MBT

·       The MBT creates electricity for itself and up to around 10 000 homes

·       By arrangement - in 75% of the Chichester District, but sadly definitely not in Trotton, check your postcode - small electricals and textiles can be picked from wherever your bins are emptied from

·       Vapes have batteries in them and, like batteries, must not go into either of our regular bins where they pose a significant fire hazard. They have to be taken to your local recycling centre (tip).

·       Product labelling saying ‘recyclable’ or ‘compostable’ means next to nothing, you can’t assume they can go in your recycling bin, green waste bin or home compost bin.

ERA is trying to arrange a group visit to the MBT (the Mechanical Biological Treatment facility) but from the County Council website we learn that the contents of our rubbish bins (for Chichester District Council, our black bins) gets sorted into 4 waste streams: biodegradable waste (such as food waste); refuse derived fuel (RDF) (such as paper, plastic, cardboard and textiles disposed of in the general waste bin, that could have been recycled); metals;  inert materials (such as bricks, glass and rubble).

The inert material goes to their landfill site and the metals are recycled. The biodegradable waste goes to an anaerobic digester which, according to the CC website, at full capacity, will produce around 4.5mW of energy - the equivalent power use of 10,000 homes. Take a look at West Sussex County Council's website. The same page tells us that the refuse derived fuel is combusted and that it ‘can’ be used as a fuel in energy recovery facilities to produce electricity – which rather begs the question as to whether it ‘is’ used for that. On a visit we should be able to clarify what this means.

With respect to food waste, West Sussex had successfully carried out trials for separate kerbside collection of food waste and was planning to go ahead with a county funded, county wide scheme when central government announced the intention to bring in a nationally funded scheme. As a result our local scheme is on hold.

As and when a food waste collection scheme is rolled out in West Sussex it is likely to be a ‘123 collection’ model, i.e. food waste collected weekly, recycling every 2 weeks and general rubbish once every 3 weeks.

Some of us pay for a green waste collection, which is for garden waste, not kitchen waste.

The disposal of vapes is an increasing problem. As they contain batteries they must not go in either of our regular bins as any batteries in our refuse collection trucks pose a significant fire hazard – they become damaged as the contents are crushed and can spark and start a fire from that point on.

Julie reminded us of the A-Z of recycling page on the CC website - our go-to place to check how to dispose of pretty much any items. Throughout her talk she reminded us about some items that she has learnt over the years are still causing some confusion:

·       Envelopes with windows can go in our recycling bin as they are, no need to remove the window

·       Clean disposable coffee cups can go in our recycling bins

·       Plastic coat hangers (with or without metal bits) need to go to our local recycling centre (tip)

·       Aerosols can go in our recycling bins

The contents of our recycling bins always need to be clean, dry and loose.

21 September 2023

The talk was aimed at everyone with a garden (or even a window-box), not just for those with green fingers.

Melanie Oxley is a local ecologist and campaigner for wildlife who also has a love of gardening. She is a founder member of Plantlife (the wild plant conservation charity) and is a ‘Wilder Garden Champion’ with the Hampshire Wildlife Trust, providing advice to people interested in improving their gardens for wildlife. Melanie Is also a Trustee of PeCAN and heads up their Nature Recovery project area.

Her talk was about how to achieve a resilient garden that will help you and nature in the climate crisis.

Over the winter, PeCAN will also arrange a short series of gardening workshops for people interested in discussing how to improve their own garden.

5 July. 2023

July 5th was a gloriously sunny evening for ERA’s AGM at The Henry Warren Hall in Nyewood. The view from outside the hall showed Sussex at its best, while inside a rapt audience of over 40 members, were treated to a talk by a visionary Sussex farmer whose mission is to ‘stitch the divide between farmers and the environment.’

James Baird is an arable farmer with a passion for soil health and nature recovery. He is also Chair of Chichester Crop Company, covering 85,000 acres. He describes himself as a ‘hard-nosed, traditional, not organic’ farmer and works the 1300-acre farm he inherited from his father on the coast in Climping. Baird’s father employed forty men to work the land. It includes salt-marsh and in his father’s day, post war, it was all about the national efficiency drive and producing as much food as possible which meant using fertiliser and enlarging fields by reducing hedges and ponds. Farmers focussed on feeding the nation in those days and not on encouraging nature. Now, with the advent of modern machinery, Baird employs only one man on the farm and divides his own time between helping him and developing his inspirational project, ‘Weald to Waves’. (Oh, and digging ponds with his son to encourage the water vole population.)

It all started when Baird read of Isabella Tree’s vision for rewilded land stretching from her Knepp Castle Estate to the sea. He called her and her husband, Charlie Burrell, to tell them they were heading for the wrong bit of coast and that he had ‘the last bit’. Baird’s land at Climping Gap is actually the last slice of undeveloped West Sussex coast, the other side of Worthing to Shoreham.

The aims of Weald to Waves are to create a nature corridor from North to South with a fully functioning eco-system, with nature friendly farming systems that restore soil biology, and also to improve public access. Nineteen farmers on the corridor have so far agreed officially to put nature first when making decisions for their farms. Included in the estates that have signed up as well as Knepp, are Ashdown Forest, Wakehurst Place and Norfolk Estate. James has managed to get the official support of The Environment Agency, The National Trust, RSPB, SDNPA, and the local authorities of Arun, Worthing and Adur and Horsham. He has yet to convince the NFU.

He understands the barriers that farmers face in making this move. There are firstly, generational barriers. In fact his father wouldn’t speak to James when he started on this road. There are also conflicting priorities: aesthetics (because nature likes a mess), time, tenancy and landlord agreements, the tax system (if you are not farming the land, you don’t get tax relief on it) and lack of direction from government.

However, he believes that if you have a clear and achievable objective and build relationships based on trust, anything is possible. Judging by his success thus far, he is right. One argument he uses that is hard to beat is that we currently produce 1.7 times the amount of calories of food than we actually need, so the extra land could be used for nature. Very different from his father’s day when every scrap of land was needed.

While Baird calls the map of Weald to Waves on this page ‘aspirational’, he hopes that it will soon be a complete reality and that people will be able to walk the corridor. He sees it as a ‘Citizen Project’ and encouraged us to get involved by growing wildflowers in our gardens, digging ponds and creating piles of logs for wildlife habitat. (A stag beetle takes six years to come to maturity in a log pile.)

James Baird is an inspiring and passionate speaker and his talk was met with warm applause, numerous questions and lively debate.

Sue Hoar

18 June 2023

A little light rain was not enough to dampen the spirits of the group attending our evening bird song walk led by ERA’s good friend Jon Taylor. Our circular walk started from Stedham churchyard and included the footpath along the riverbank down to the mill. Jon was able to demonstrate how using your ears can greatly increase your knowledge of what is around you, although remembering which call goes with which bird is going to take quite some recall! Altogether 14 different birds were recognised by sound, but not necessarily seen, with a further seven being seen but not heard.

Those heard were: Male Chaffinch, Goldcrest, Wren, Goldfinch (‘tinkling’), Chiffchaff, Wood Pigeon, Blackbird, Yellow Hammer, Blackbird, Whitethroat, Kingfisher, Mistle Thrush, House Sparrow, Carrion Crow.

Those seen were: Pied Wagtail, Skylark, Swallow, Grey Wagtail, Kestrel, Green Woodpecker, Starling.

14 June 2023

Matt introduced us to this relatively new industry, providing a geologist’s perspective on how CO2 is collected, transported and stored; preventing it from escaping into the atmosphere and further fuelling climate change. Whilst Matt carried out this talk as an independent, he called upon experiences gained from his current employer, Storegga. Storegga is a Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) project developer that’s primary objective is to originate solutions to transport and permanently store CO2 from hard-to-abate industrial sectors, such as cement and lime manufacturing, the petrochemical industry, waste incineration plants and power stations, to name but a few. Geological storage of CO2 is carried out at depths of 750m-2500m below ground in carefully selected sites where it will remain safely stored indefinitely. It is also possible to extract CO2 directly from the air using technologies such as Direct Air Capture (DAC). Other companies use other methods for storage, such a carbon mineralisation, in which the CO2 is dissolved in water which interacts with reactive rock formations such as Basalts to form stable minerals providing a permanent carbon sink.

Matt described how the CCS value chain works from industrial emitter to geological storage, known as “source to sink”. A number of transport options exist for moving CO2 including the reuse or new build of existing pipelines, shipping, train and barge.  Typically the CO2 is transported and permanently stored in depleted oil and gas fields, saline aquifers and/or basalts. Porous and permeable sandstone situated beneath layers of impermeable shale rock create the exact conditions required to safely store CO2. Often these structures and geological features have previously safely held oil and natural gas for millions of years before mankind exploited the oil for use. The key component of injecting CO2 in the subsurface stores is the dissipation of pressure from the wellbore into the surround rock. Ultimately the stores are not subjected to overpressure and as such damaged to the rock which could cause leakage, seismicity and contamination of the water table is highly unlikely. 

Industry regulations require proof that 100% of the CO2 is safely stored, requiring an ongoing system of Measurement, Monitoring and Verification (MMV). There are a number of established and proven technologies that help companies monitor and detect for any leakage potential. These are done daily and for 20-30 years after last injection.

Currently one of the major funding support for CCS projects comes from government subsidies but there is no reason why it should not be self-sustaining over time. Companies that would otherwise have to pay taxes linked to their carbon emissions can choose instead to pay for the transport and storage of their CO2 rather than pay the tax. It is therefore essential that the fee charged by service providers is less than the tax an emitter would pay.

Matt argued that CCS has a definite role to play in addressing climate change, alongside increased energy efficiency; expansion of renewable energies; improved sustainable practice in general; and ongoing behavioural change leading to significant and sustained emissions reduction.

It was a fascinating introduction to CCS and led to yet another in depth discussion following an ERA talk.

Matt has kindly offered to answer any further questions on this talk by email: matthew.warner@petersfieldcan.org.

10 June 2023

It was great to mark the start of Great Big Green Week by attending the screening of The Oil Machine hosted by Eco Rother Action and Petersfield Climate Action Network at the Henry Warren Hall in Nyewood.

As the title suggests the film is about our addition to oil and the UK's relationship with its extraction over the last 50 years. As the expert voices told us it is an addiction that underpins our economic system and that the complexity of this systemic "carbon entanglement" is what stops any government taking bold and brave steps to move away from fossil fuels, though Keir Starmer seems to be having a go. It felt refreshing that the film marvelled at the innovation of engineering that enabled us to extract oil from under the sea but it then crashed into people from the oil and gas industry talking about net zero oil extraction. The "renewable renaissance" that the film calls for is not easy and as the film shows oil has brought investment, wealth and jobs to the UK but as climate scientists, Sir David King and Kevin Anderson remind us, we have no choice.

Though watching the construction of a North Sea oil rig was pretty majestic, the film spent too much time on moody shots of the hostile North Sea and not enough time talking in any depth about solutions. There were glimmers of practical action with Steve Waygood calling on people to "raise our understanding of banking, investments and insurance" and to know where your money is and what industries it is propping up. The points that stuck with me were the costs to the taxpayer for decommissioning oil manufacturing, £18 billion, as a tax kick back to the oil and gas companies and a reminder that climate breakdown will lead to over a million climate refugees by 2050. As a result of the film I will continue to be a conscious consumer, make the right choices with my money but also look into the Paid to Pollute scandals and use my vote in the next election to stand for climate action.

By Katherine Hewetson

15 May 2023

ERA’s talk from Southern Water was both fascinating and, at times, gruesome! The talk provided plenty of insight as to what we customers can do to help the system work better and the ensuing wide ranging discussion (which continued as long as the original presentation!) also resulted in some specific answers to some probing questions.

A full write up will appear in due course on this website, but I will outline a few highlights here.

Thames Water now make their ‘near real time’ data on sewage spills (storm overflows) publicly available on their Storm Discharge Map. Southern Water plan to do likewise and plan to have this data publicly available by March 2024. The table of local sewage spills from 2022, published here last month, demonstrates how locally relevant this is – the waste water treatment plant at Harting releasing untreated sewage more than a third of the time, for example.

Southern Water’s target is ‘zero pollution by 2040’ – a challenging target, but they are giving themselves a less challenging timescale for delivering it. And does that include no pollution from road run-off, which can contain all sorts of nasties; and what about the microplastics in the water that comes out of our washing machines?

A key point of the presentation was that 66% of sewage blockages were preventable as being caused by customers, included business customers, putting the wrong things into the system. The core message being that only the 3 Ps should be flushed down the toilet – pee, poo and paper (although at one of their talks a small boy made a valid argument for the inclusion of a fourth ‘P’ – puke!).

FOG (Fat, Oil and Grease) and plastics (such as in wipes) are a huge problem with respect to causing blockages. Apparently, carefully mixing fats from cooking with detergents actually makes things worse as when the mixture then mixes with calcium from the water a process called ‘saponification’ occurs leading to the mixture hardening quicker, and firmer than the FOG would have done on its own. One positive suggestion was to use such fat as the basis for bird feeders, but more realistically it should go into the bin to be sent to landfill. We were shown some gruesome photos of what turns up in our sewers, with coating of FOG into which all else is stuck.

Laundry powders, used at lower temperatures, can fail to dissolve properly and also contribute to saponification. Laundry liquids are preferable from this respect.

There is no legal definition of ‘flushable’ and so things such as sanitary items, wet wipes etc. saying they are flushable means very little; if it is not one of the 3 (4?) Ps then we should avoid flushing them down the toilet.

We were assured that the culture at Southern Water is changing, as one of our members summarised it, they are moving from being reactive (sort it out when it happens) to being proactive (get on top of the situation so that it doesn’t happen in the first place). Their spending has to be approved by Ofwat in five year periods, which acts to restrict how quickly they can update what they are doing and respond to societal pressure. If the emphasis at the beginning of a regulatory period was on reducing leaks then increasing the emphasis on the prevention of sewage spills can be problematic.

Looking forward they plan to reduce spills by slowing down the rate at which storm waters hits the treatment plants such as by extensive use of slow release water butts on buildings (holding the storm waters back a while, but releasing them subsequently over time), or by creation of swales, (large, shallow ditches to hold the water on the land nearer its source). Southern Water recently announced several trials of these approaches which do seem to be capable of having a significant impact. They also need to continue to improve the infrastructure e.g. more holding tanks.

In summary, some of the current situation can be improved by us changing our behaviour and some of it needs to be addressed by Southern Water, who are on the case, but maybe not responding at the scale we might like to see or on the timescale we might like to see.

We were told that 95% of waste water DOES get treated, leaving only 5% to enter our waterways untreated. But 5% of a very large amount of waste water remains an unacceptably large amount.

12 April 2023 in person at Henry Warren Hall, Nyewood

Even those of us in the ERA book club, who had read his book, found there was still more for us to learn from this engaging and thought-provoking speaker.

Philip began by telling how, when watching a tractor at work in a field near Rogate, he was struck by the absence of seagulls following the plough. A quick look at the overturned soil showed exactly why – the soil had no life in it, no worms or bugs, nothing to attract those seagulls! If we don’t look after the soil it cannot look after us, for example, one way in which it should be doing that is by absorbing carbon from the air.

Factory farming, industrialised farming, is continuing to grow in the UK, leading to ever diminishing wildlife as great stretches of monoculture offer them so little and American style feedlots need those great stretches of single crops to provide food for all those animals.

Philip has concluded that there are just too many farm animals and that we need to move towards having less of them but allowing them to be part of a rotational way of farming where the same patch of land is not expected to perform the same trick year after year but will transition from farm animals of one sort or another, to crops of one sort or another, ringing the changes and allowing the soil to be fed by the manure of the animals. With less animals to feed less land would need to be under crops as so much of current crops go to feed farm animals. This in turn would release land for rewilding, land where wildlife comes first.

Regenerative farming practices would help both the climate crisis and biodiversity losses, but we might then need to look elsewhere for some of our protein. Already alternatives are being developed such as precision fermentation techniques. For right now the message needs to be eat ‘less but better’, let meat go back to being an occasional food, but when you do have it select something produced in more nature friendly ways.

Philip can see a route towards a better future and he is sure the winds of change are blowing, we just need to set our sails in the right direction!

21 March 2023

ERA’s trip to the Ford Materials Recycling Facility (MRF) in March provided a fascinating opportunity to extend our understanding of what happens to the contents of our burgundy bins and why the automated system they have in place really does need us to only put the right things into those bins and to make sure the items are clean, dry and loose.

We all felt we learnt something new and have needed to tweak our recycling habits. For the full write up please go to this page, but here are some of the highlights:

·       The predominantly automated system can only work if everything is clean, dry, loose

·       ‘Clean’ means reasonably clean, not spotlessly clean

·       Envelopes stuffed with other envelopes/papers etc, cannot be recognised as paper envelopes by the system: they need to be loose

·       Cans inside a cereal box would also not be recognised and sorted correctly

·       Wet paper/card can gum up the works and bring the whole thing grinding to a halt

·       Plastic carrier bags get wrapped around the machinery and also bring it to a halt

·       Aluminium must be gathered into a wodge, so collect your milk bottle tops and then capture them in a snowball sized ball of reasonably clean, used kitchen foil. Loose milk bottle tops will not end up with the sorted aluminium.

·       Lids on if base and lid are the same material and off if not, so for jam jars lids must be off, for plastic bottles lids should be on

·       Plastics are sorted by colour and black plant pots are not something the system recognises, and are likely to be too dirty anyway

·       Batteries are a huge fire hazar; they get damaged by the mechanism and are in with flammable materials

·       If loads contain more than a certain amount of contaminants, of the wrong things, they get rejected

·       ‘Wishcycling’ is just adding contaminants and this huge sorting machine will not be moved to start recycling other things just because you added them in.

16 March 2023 in person

David Elliott, National Trust Lead Ranger for the South Downs West area, talked us through some of the challenges that face our river as well as giving us some positive messages for the future.

David showed photographs of sewage on the river, explaining that Combined Sewage Overflows (CSOs) are designed so that in times of heavy rain the system doesn’t back up, he explained that unfortunately these systems seem to being used more often than was originally intended, meaning, raw sewage can flow directly into the river. Many sewage treatment works have Event Duration Monitors which record when this happens and the Rivers Trusts then publish this data through their Sewage Map.

Interestingly Thames Water has made this data available in what they term ‘near real time’ and pressure needs to be put on Southern Water to catch up with this welcome initiative from Thames Water. Follow this link.

The river can also be challenged by intensive farming methods with agrichemicals, especially fertilsers, being put on the land and then some of them getting rinsed through our sandy soil and into the river.

David went on to tell us the impact of invasive species such a Signal Crayfish, a North American species which has a huge negative impact on our native Crayfishes. Where there are Mink, which are not native but have survived in the wild since historic releases from fur farms, you do not see our native Water Voles (Ratty from Wind in the Willows). The National Trust organises periodic Himalayan Balsam work parties to remove this pretty annual which, as its name implies, hails from the Himalayas, and which grows so well here it prevents any of our native botany from growing beneath in and can take over large stretches of river bank. ERA expressed an interest in getting involved with any such work parties in the future.

Our river has a series of weirs with each one making life difficult for wildlife such as fishes and eels which struggle to cross them. Above and beyond impeding the fish, these weirs also cause a build up of sediment upstream of them. This sediment then destroys the life in the riverbed. Installing eel ladders at these weirs can go some way to improving the situation but from the wildlife point of view removal of these weirs would be best, although prohibitively expensive.

On a more positive note David told us of Otters seen at various points down the river and sadly one dead one seen on the A272. He hopes to make safer crossings for Otters by providing ledges under bridges which Otters would happily use rather than coming up to road level and crossing our dangerous highways.

Finally, David told us of a National Trust project which is very close to his heart, the re-introduction of Beavers in a fenced compound just north of our area. Beavers are vegetarian, their leaky dams create a mosaic of ponds, holding back much of the water following rainstorms and creating a multitude of different mini habitats. Naturally they would be found on small streams, tributaries, rather than on larger rivers. Maybe one day we might be lucky enough to have Otters eating fish in the main river and Beavers beavering away on some of our smaller streams!

During the questions and answers time David commented that if members of the audience feel so strongly about the health of our River Rother then we need to get involved one way or another and that a great starting point would be to join ERA (which he himself has done!).

18 February 2023 by Zoom

Speaking to us from Oman, Andy Figgins outlined his company’s approach to transitioning away from fossil fuels and achieving ‘real zero’. during this decade. Fortescue Future Industries (FFI) was established by parent company Fortescue Metals Group Ltd (FMG) in response to challenges of climate change. Mining for metals and transporting them around the world is an energy intensive business but by decarbonising profitably the companies believe they can save money. They wiil no longer have to buy fossil fuels, pay any future carbon taxes, or be at the mercy of future hydrocarbon fuel price hikes. They can also create new revenue streams by being a leader in the R&D needed to decarbonise, with new technologies to market to others and important ‘first mover advantage’. FMG see this as a way to manage the risks that climate change will create as well as being morally right due to the environmental and social impact of not taking these actions. Andy argued that governments being too slow and constrained, private companies need to step up.

Fortescue believes in ‘real zero’ not net zero, that is, zero use of fossil fuels. They plan to achieve this by 2030, taking any longer being ‘just lazy’. It helps that their Australian parent company has something of a frontier spirit, seeing themselves as corporate activists.

Their model for achieving this shows some increase in their carbon emissions up to 2025 and then a steep decline from there on. These targets will depend on the development of new technology in a number of areas and so must be, to some degree, aspirational - but Andy gave the clear impression that nothing except success will be deemed acceptable!

In search of the right skills and attitudes, particularly with respect to battery development, Fortescue purchased Williams Advanced Engineering, sister company to the Williams F1 team.

So, where has all this got FFI so far?

Back in Australia the company uses monster trucks to move mined ore around the site plus their own railway to transport it to the docks. The train can be 3km long but the journey to the coast involves a drop of some 700m to sea level. In a modern day rethink of a funicular railway, by 2026 they plan for their trains to use regenerative braking to charge batteries on the journey to the docks and then that energy will be used to return the empty train to the mining site. In partnership with Liebherr (Germany) they have developed a battery and engine which is being trialed in one of their massive dumper trucks (the wheels are some 6 foot tall!) with a target of using only zero emission battery/hydrogen trucks by 2025. They are developing methods of producing hydrogen using renewable energy, that is green hydrogen from solar and wind, with plans to use some of it to make ammonia to fuel their marine fleet. By 2029 they plan to use electric/hydrogen drill rigs and excavators.

These are all very ambitious targets and undoubtedly there will be obstacles along the way but the company’s attitude is that this is what needs to happen for humanity and the rest of nature and that there is money to be made by being in the vanguard.

Andy has agreed to give us periodic updates. We certainly look forward to receiving them. Those who attended this talk felt it was great to hear such a positive story of endeavour backed by a belief that this CAN be done: we just need to get on with it.

11 January 2023 by Zoom

Tipping points are thresholds that, if crossed, trigger large scale and irreversible changes in the climate system. They include Arctic melting, disappearance of Amazon and Boreal forests, methane release and loss of ocean circulation. About 20 tipping points have been identified and several have already been passed. Can we avoid Hot House Earth by geo-engineering and socio-economic change?

16 November 2022 by Zoom

Currently every year 85% of all textiles produced end up in landfill sites or in the ocean. Oli Pepper from Circular Inc gave us a fascinating insight into how his company is striving to develop an alternative model and to make clothing part of the circular economy. At the design stage the whole life of the garment must be considered – designing so that repair or alteration are easily achieved so as to extend the life of the garment but also planning what the options could be when it can no longer be worn, can all or some of it be repurposed and can the rest be recycled? Clothing needs not one but multiple lives. Oli’s business is mostly concerned with repair of sports and outdoor clothing but the principles apply far more widely than that. The post-talk discussion ranged widely, with Oli providing insight into topics as diverse as school uniform, textile recycling, and the role of charity shops.

12 October 2022 in person

Simon Boxley from Winchester University will gave us a talk at Borden Wood village hall on how climate change is taught in higher education and in schools.

Longyearbyen in Svalbard, Norway, is the world's northernmost town. It is also the fastest warming place on Earth. Simon Winchester has come back from there. He explored what can UK institutions learn about climate change education from the experience of education in the world’s northernmost town.

30 September - 3 October 2022

ERA’s FreshWater Watch group took part in Earthwatch’s global Big WaterBlitz, creating a snapshot of the health (or otherwise) of our waterways during this period, celebrating the cleanest waterbodies, and identifying pollution hotspots.

1 October 2022

Jonnie Taylor this walk titled 'Foraging - as good for the brain as for the belly'. While strolling through the autumn countryside we looked at what can be considered either edible or useful to humankind. We discussed why such activities are considered good for mental health and well-being; sound nutrition for our bodies and sustainable for our environment.

28 September 2022 in person

Catriona Cockburn from Energise South Downs gave a talk about this local community energy project. Its aim is to cut carbon emissions within the South Downs and the surrounding areas by encouraging renewable energy that is generated locally and which benefits the local community. Community energy offers people and communities the opportunity to take tangible action to help tackle spiralling energy costs, energy insecurity and climate change at a local level, it creates local jobs while surplus profit from community energy schemes is channelled into local projects such as supporting fuel poverty programmes. The talk was held at Rogate Church.

24 September 2022

Held at Chairman’s Meadow, Dumpford

10 September 2022

20 August 2022

8 August 2022

We were delighted to have the opportunity to visit Cittaviveka, the Buddhist Monastery at Chithurst. Ajahn Ahimsako, the abbot, has attended ERA events both in person and virtually since our very first get together in Aylings Garden Centre, and has been a very supportive member throughout. The visit includes a climate conversation, an opportunity to join in a meditation session and a tour of the grounds. We were also invited to lunch .

3 August 2022 at Elsted Village Hall

A short AGM was followed by a talk from special guest Lord Nicholas Stern, author of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. Brief summary of his talk: ‘The transition to net-zero emissions can be the development story of the 21st century. We can have an economy and society that is more productive, cleaner, and healthier and full of new job opportunities. But we have to invest, innovate and change to get there and manage the dislocation along the way. COP26 was an important step forward but we have to deliver and accelerate. The window for action is closing rapidly.’

17 July 2022

28 June 2022 in person

Matthew came to Borden Wood Village Hall to talk to the group. He showed a series of slides demonstrating the impact of climate change on our British nature and described the process Sussex Wildlife Trust is working through to better understand their carbon footprint and to keep reducing it further and further.

7 May 2022

26 April 2022 in person

Simon used a collection of about 40 everyday plastic items to demonstrate the complexity of plastic packaging and why some can be easily recycled yet others not and arguing that the system needs to be simplified with some types of plastic being no longer used at all. The event was held in Rogate church.

28 March 2022 by Zoom

Steve talked us through how global finance works, its history and how we have power through the decisions we make about where our own money sits, and the questions we then ask about what our money is being used for.

14 February 2022 by Zoom

Rachel Ritchie led this event for local Parish Councils. Six local Parish Councils had representatives at it, as well as ERA members. Rachel covered a general introduction to the science behind climate change and went on to talk about the roles our local representatives can take to ensure that good decisions are made locally.

25 January 2022 by Zoom

Dan furthered our understanding of the term ‘regenerative farming’ by reference to his own developing farm practise and by drawing on examples from farms he has visited in other countries.

25 November 2021 by Zoom

Rachel took us through the science behind climate change and what we can do as individuals and as a group. She went on to give us feedback from COP26, concluding that progress had been made but not as much as we had hoped for.

27 October 2021 by Zoom

We were told that we live in a water stressed area, implying that we need to decrease the demand for water. Any reduction we do achieve will also act to reduce the carbon footprint of Southern Water as cleaning and pumping water to our homes takes energy as does processing waste water. Taking into account the full process of making bottled water, it takes approx. 3L of bottled water to produce a 1L bottle of water. See Southern Water’s Get Water Fit website for more information.