Reading Climate Action Network website
If recycling boxes or wheeliebins are cluttering up your porch or garden, consider constructing a home for them with a green roof. This one is made from the slats and legs of an old bed and planted up with sedum varieties.
It keeps the recyclate dry, frees up space in the home and feeds a host of insects. Win-win.
The first draft of our food waste fermentation and composting advice is available and we’d love some feedback to nature@readingcan.org.uk whilst the graphically capable amongst us make it look pretty for the real thing. Does it help? What’s unclear?
The early Spring meant the earliest average emergence of butterflies in the last 20 years. . Please spend just 15 minutes on a sunny day (don’t choose boiling hot at midday weather) to count butterflies in your garden or on your daily exercise route so that Butterfly Conservation can understand how the changing weather patterns affects populations.
You can download an app to identify and count butterflies on the move, or scribble in a notebook to enter the data later at the butterfly count website
You ‘ve probably noticed that Reading Borough Council is leaving a number of grass verges and roundabouts to grow longer this year rather than having their normal 6-7 cuts a year. This is part of their commitment to the climate action plan and biodiversity action plan, but monitoring is needed to review the impact of these changes, both good and bad. You can help with this if you record your interesting sightings on their rewilding page (deer already seen on one), which is where to go to read more about this action and the location of rewilding sites.
Interested in installing air source heat pumps in domestic buildings? Then join this free zoom seminar from Bath and West Community Energy on 6th August at 7pm. For more information about the speakers and to register for this event go to https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/renewable-heat-and-heat-pumps-tickets-112789386090
Then help climate scientists understand past rainfall variations and improve models for future flooding events?
The UK has an amazing repository of rainfall records from the last 200 years, but most of this is handwritten and not that easy to use in the current era. The Rainfall Rescue Project is seeking volunteers to transfer all these old handwritten pages of rainfall data into online spreadsheets.
It’s easy to do a few tens of records a day without getting bored to tears, but I recommend that you choose the option to transcribe local records because it is easier to read the handwritten locations if you recognise the place names!
John Christensen, who chairs the Tax Justice Network, gave a great talk on equitable options to finance the necessary changes to hit carbon net zero. You can read it on https://www.taxjustice.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Just-Transition-RICS-11-MAR-2020.pdf
there is a two part newsletter giving more details about these ideas , including methods of sustainable cost reporting (SCORE) of greenhouse gas emissions. https://www.taxjustice.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/TJF_2020_11-2_V3.pdf
Next time you visit a National Trust property remember your reusable cup and claim a 25p discount for the hot drink
The general takeaway containers from the Trust are now made from plant based materials, but the Trust wants to reduce overall waste.
thanks to everyone who supported this new renewable energy scheme for Reading,. Construction can now start
Exciting News: the Reading Hydro scheme has all of its necessary permits and will be built and commissioned in 2020 at a cost of £700,000.
You can be a part of this by investing as little as £75
If you think you might like to invest in this renewable energy project for the town. then please go to the Reading hydro website and read ALL about it before making your decision: the plans, the risks, the potential investment return and the community benefits
For more information about the scheme and to access the share offer document go to https://hydro.readinguk.org