One day, a man in Salford Quays awoke to find a duck nesting on his balcony, 150 ft above the water. Once born, her ducklings had to be lowered down in a bucket. With over 20 acres of water at her disposal, why did that mother duck decide to nest there? And why did thousands of fish in the same location die overnight?

Inspired by talking to the duckling rescuer, the inventor of cutting-edge water monitoring equipment, and an award-winning science fiction author, Emma Newman imagines a future where communities help to keep waterways across the UK clean enough to swim in thanks to a nifty monitoring system.

In episode 5 we heard from:

• Steve Stuttard, duckling rescuer (watch Steve's rescues on YouTube)
• Glynn Cotton from WATR, the environmental monitoring system
• Rachelle Atalla, author of "The Pharmacist" and "Dirty Animals"

Additional resources related to the episode

Join a local action group

When the average person can’t control how the funds in their own bank accounts or pensions are used by institutions, is there any way to stop terrible things being done with our money?

Inspired by conversations with the leader of a grassroots movement empowering women to take control of their finances, a community farm in Wales raising funds to keep the farm in the service of the local people it feeds, and an award-winning science fiction writer, Emma Newman imagines a world in which fossil fuel companies are starved of funds and ethical companies are able to thrive thanks to sensible, sustainable community investment.

Who we hear from in this episode:

Money Movers: https://www.wearemoneymovers.com/

Tydden Teg Farm: https://tyddynteg.com/

Adrian Tchaikovsky: https://adriantchaikovsky.com/

My own website: www.enewman.co.uk

Resources:

Friends of the Earth article about the World Bank:

https://foe.org/blog/finance-to-fossil-fuels-world-bank-imf/

The Tydden Teg Community Share offer document: https://drive.google.com/file/d/14eQEnnrDs7Bws7eFP8-IAme_gtoOZlFu/view

Report by Urgewald on World Bank Trade Finance: https://www.urgewald.org/sites/default/files/media-files/Urgewald%20-%20Trade%20Finance%20Paper%20-0923.pdf

Friends of the Earth article about UK Pension Funds:

https://friendsoftheearth.uk/climate/revealed-ps16bn-local-government-pensions-fuelling-climate-crisis

Tydden Teg’s Crowdfunder page - now finished, but you can see how they did it: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/tyddyn-teg-community-shares

foe.uk/community-groups

Co-operatives UK - Helped Tydden Teg to do their community share offer: https://www.uk.coop/

The origin of Money Movers: https://experiments.friendsoftheearth.uk/projects/money-movers-get-your-friends-or-colleagues-together-take-climate-action-your-finances

Climate Town video on banks financing fossil fuel projects: https://youtu.be/NJ7W6HFHPYs

Across the UK there are thousands of faith buildings playing important roles in their communities. Churches, mosques, gurdwaras, all host gatherings for worship and for community activities such as playgroups, choirs, support groups and many more. Recently, many have been serving as warm banks, providing a space for people struggling to heat their homes in the energy crisis. How can these buildings, often huge and sometimes hundreds of years old, afford to provide these critical spaces in times of energy price hikes and still meet net-zero goals? Inspired by talking to an interfaith group in Birmingham, an innovative infra-red heating company in Bristol and an NYT bestselling science-fiction author, Emma Newman imagines a future in which community groups redesign the function of former shopping malls to create third spaces that repair the fabric of society.

Who we hear from in this episode:

Footsteps: https://footstepsbcf.org.uk/

Herschel Infrared: https://www.herschel-infrared.co.uk/heating-heritage-buildings/churches/

Una McCormack: https://unamccormack.co.uk/

My own website: www.enewman.co.uk

https://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/design/faith-buildings-and-local-communities/ - Interesting post about working with Bow Church to expand community activities

http://www.empoweringdesign.net/ - all about the research project looking at community engagement in the use of faith buildings

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/enabling-community-based-leadership-in-design-sustainable-development-of-historic-faith-buildings/1 - An Open University course designed to help people to consult with communities on the use of faith buildings

A video about the Halo heater, in which the diagram about bubbles of heat mentioned in the episode can be seen: https://youtu.be/eqnZF2uYMz4