The little Somerset village taking on climate change
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 10 December 2021
⏱️ 28 minutes
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Summary
It's just a tiny collection of houses and a church. But could Steart in Somerset have found a pioneering solution for carbon capture? In partnership with the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, the village has flooded neighbouring land to help protect against future flooding caused by climate change - with surprising environmental benefits.
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Guests:
-Kaya Burgess, science reporter and religious affairs correspondent, The Times.
-Dr Hannah Mossman, Senior Lecturer in Ecology, Manchester Metropolitan University.
-Dr Rachel Dunk, Principal Lecturer Environmental Management and Sustainable Development, Manchester Metropolitan University.
Host: Manveen Rana.
Clips: Channel 4 News.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Climate change isn't just coming, it's already here. At COP26 we heard from islands all over |
| 0:12.2 | the world who are now at risk. But what about Britain? There are coastal villages in this |
| 0:19.3 | country that now face the full force of climate change. |
| 0:24.5 | The residents there have come up with a plan of well who's going to have the sand banks |
| 0:28.1 | and the pumps. Do we need to buy a boat? |
| 0:31.0 | Now a little village in Somerset called Steert. One of the places in this country that's |
| 0:36.3 | most at risk is pioneering a solution. |
| 0:40.6 | When the water swell they now flow through what's called a breach gate and they flood |
| 0:45.6 | into this sort of specially made spoke area of coastal marshland. |
| 0:51.0 | Has the world overlooked a vital source of carbon capture? Could rebuilding a habitat |
| 0:57.9 | from the past help us to secure our future? |
| 1:01.8 | Wetlands or sort of marshland around the world. Locks up and absorbs more carbon dioxide |
| 1:07.2 | from the atmosphere than all of the world's forests combined. |
| 1:10.7 | Pioneering projects like the one in Steert in Somerset are being supported by the |
| 1:15.6 | wildfowl and wetlands trust. One of the charities benefiting from this year's Christmas |
| 1:20.7 | appeal from the times and the Sunday times. We'll hear from scientists about the astonishing |
| 1:26.9 | results from the project in Steert. |
| 1:30.4 | In terms of the numbers we have found that in the first four years the Steert marshes |
| 1:38.4 | site stored just around 67,000 tons of carbon dioxide. |
| 1:46.4 | You're listening to stories of our times from the times and the Sunday times. I'm Manvin |
| 1:51.0 | Rana. Today the little Somerset village taking on climate change. |
| 2:03.0 | As the times science and religious affairs correspondent Kaya Burgess has spent much of |
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