Catch up on the latest environmental news from across the county with Abby Hook.
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00:00 Good evening and welcome to Kenton on Climate, live on KMTV. I'm Abbey Hook and in this show
00:19 we discuss all things related to environmental issues in the county. How is climate change
00:24 impacting Kent? What are communities in the county doing to tackle it? And how can you
00:28 help at home? Well each week I take a deep dive into a new environmental issue in the
00:32 county and I'm joined by expert guests. Well, expert guest today is Gabriel Morris, first
00:39 tonight. Industry expert, policy makers and academics from across the south east today
00:45 are calling for a more sustainable food sector. The theme of this year's conference is food
00:50 in a time of crisis. It comes as inflation has eased slightly, fuelled by a slowing of
00:56 food prices. But industry experts say the garden of England is actually in fact far
01:01 from rosy, as Gabriel Morris joins me on the line now. Gabriel, you've been at the Eastern
01:07 Ark conference today. Who was there? What is the conference all about? Well Abbey, there
01:15 were a lot of experts there and as you say I feel like an expert now on all things going
01:21 on in the farming industry in Kent. Well, who was here today? So there were academics
01:27 from the University of Kent, the University of Essex and East Anglia University. They
01:31 form the Eastern Ark University. So that was one part of it, but the other part of it are
01:38 people who are on the ground, who deal with some of the crisis that they face in day in
01:44 day out, such as farmers, but also people from communities, supermarkets. There was
01:49 one group from Essex here today and they were here today for breakout rooms, for lectures,
01:57 for seminars to talk about some of the issues being faced in Kent and in the South East
02:03 in general. And these conversations people had said today were really, really important
02:09 because the South East is heavily influenced by the food industry. It makes up a third
02:15 of England's total income, Abbey. Gabriel, you said that you're an expert now, but what
02:22 did you actually learn to get to your expert level today? What sort of things did you sort
02:27 of take on board? Well, the one thing that I'm going to take home with me today is that
02:34 there are 16,000 people in Kent. Now that is estimated from Kent County Council who
02:41 are employed in the food industry, such as fruit pickers, farmers, the list goes on,
02:47 but that number isn't necessarily accurate. And that is one thing, as a research gap,
02:54 that the consortium would like to actually fix, is to get actually solid data on what
02:59 the picture looks like here in the South East. And I've also learned how the sector actually
03:04 faces a number of different challenges on different sides, such as one of them, Brexit.
03:10 That's reduced the number of people in employment. The war in Ukraine, that is driving inflation,
03:14 not just for us individuals, but also for the farming industry, such as the rising cost
03:19 of fertiliser and petrol, which we've seen today in the latest inflation figures has
03:24 gone up. And also the Covid pandemic as well. For Kent, we need to look at farming in a
03:33 broader picture. Farming can't sit in a silo anymore, but it has to realise how it works
03:37 in a broader picture. They need to realise how they can exploit the resources that they
03:40 have around them, not just looking at simply growing a crop and trying to make that for
03:44 an economic viability, but actually going to something farther. How do they use their
03:48 waste resources to actually bring new value streams into what they're doing? For Kent,
03:53 we have a great, good variety of land uses that we have in Kent, and a large amount of
03:58 crops that are grown here. But we will be under pressure if they sit in silos. Connecting
04:03 all of these together, creating circular economies where things can work together and businesses
04:08 can work hand in hand can really make a real impact.
04:15 Well Abhi, that was Rob there. He's a doctor from the University of Kent, actually talking
04:20 about how the farmers actually need to work together to create a circular economy to make
04:27 the industry more sustainable. So it would see farmers working together, so off cuts
04:33 of fruit can be fed into fertiliser for chickens, for example, instead of importing soya beans
04:40 from Argentina from South America, which is a long distance away from Kent, from England,
04:46 and that has high food margins. But chickens can be fed on off cuts from Kent. Now, there
04:52 were also many other pressures which are having an impact on the sustainability of farming
04:57 in Kent. 33% of soils are degraded and there are calls for regenerative farming. Now, one
05:04 of the big issues is, and particularly we heard this from James Smith, who is the owner
05:09 of Loddington Farm. He also runs Owlet Juice. We featured him on Made in Kent in the past.
05:15 He says that farmers across the county and England are not being paid a fair price by
05:21 supermarkets. In fact, he actually doesn't supply them anymore. That's why he's diversified
05:26 his business and opened Owlet Juice. But shopping locally does come at a cost. Currently,
05:33 it usually is a little bit more expensive than most people would expect. And I think
05:39 during the cost of living crisis, a lot of individuals will be driven by cost. They'll
05:43 go to the cheaper supermarkets and buy the cheapest products available. How can we tackle
05:48 this? Well, this is something that the producer in Kent talked about today. The current argument
05:54 is that food needs to be cheap because we're in a cost of living crisis. I think cheap
05:59 food is a tiny sticky plaster on a big festering wound of low wages that have been stagnated
06:05 for years and that certainly haven't kept up with food inflation. So I think we need
06:11 to change the narrative again and press for action on addressing the causes for the cost
06:16 of living crisis rather than its effects. In a way, making the food producers and growers
06:23 the culprits. Well, Abbey, I've learned a lot today and I think the future is bright
06:30 for the Kent's farming industry. There's been a lot of talk today. Let's hope they walk
06:34 the walk. Gabriel, thank you very much. You've been busy today learning a lot, as I say.
06:40 Maybe you'll be one of the experts I bring on weekly for Kent on Climate. Now, you've
06:44 earned yourself the title. Thanks, Gabriel. Next tonight, in the past couple of hours,
06:50 Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced a pushing back of climate pledges, including
06:54 the banning of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030, five years to 2035. The Prime Minister
07:00 says he remains committed to net zero, but that he needs to remain pragmatic. Well, joining
07:05 me on the sofa with more information now is Bartholomew Hall. Bartholomew, firstly, can
07:10 you remind us what the government pledges were and what exactly has changed today? Well,
07:17 as you mentioned there, this sort of overarching pledge is net zero. Now, that's a pledge which
07:21 the government has said many times in the past and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reiterated
07:25 today will happen by 2050. He remains committed to that 2050 mark. Now, the sort of headline
07:32 figure is all about this ban of petrol and diesel cars. That was originally set to be
07:37 2030. Rishi Sunak believes that many people will be driving electric cars by 2030, but
07:43 that he is going to move back that marker of 2030 to 2035. That will allow people to
07:49 - well, the price of electric cars, which we all know is a lot higher than petrol and
07:53 diesel cars, that will potentially lower by then as more people are getting them and also
07:58 the infrastructure for charging, which we know many electric car users really struggle
08:04 with sometimes trying to find some when they're using their electric vehicles. Now, another
08:08 one of these pledges which is being changed is this total ban on the installation of gas
08:13 of new gas boilers from 2035. Now, that's going to be reduced by just 80% of those gas
08:20 boilers that will need a replacement. He's also announced an increase of 50% of a replacement
08:26 scheme to allow people to have a cash grant to swap their boiler to a heat pump. There's
08:33 a few more policies as well which have been proposed. I'll just quickly rattle through
08:37 them now. Taxes to incentivise car sharing, international flying on certain meets. He
08:42 says that's all going to go. He wants people to be able to make their own choices rather
08:47 than the government forcing them. Well, Bartholomew, thank you very much for giving us the details
08:51 on that. Now, some stormy weather in Kent recently. We spoke to the Met Office about
08:56 what we can expect, but first let's take a look at our forecast.
09:09 Well, this evening looking pretty miserable and rainy. Lows of 15, a bit of a breeze from
09:13 the southeast. Tomorrow morning, temperatures around the same, but looking dry at 10am,
09:18 staying fairly cloudy. The afternoon warming up slightly by 4pm, bringing a little more
09:24 wind with it, a mix of sun and cloud. And a pretty mixed weekend too, raining Friday,
09:30 dry and sunny Saturday, but rain again come Sunday.
09:33 As the remnants of Hurricane Lee bring gale force winds to the UK today, the Met Office
09:48 has brought in yellow alerts for rain for much of the east. But just how badly have
09:52 we been affected here in Kent? Well, we spoke to the Met Office meteorologist Alex Birkhill.
09:58 40, 50 mph winds, they're not unheard of at this time of year. They're fairly usual, to
10:04 be honest. It could cause a few minor issues. You know, some trees may have some branches
10:10 broken. It's worth bearing in mind it's still early.
10:13 Sorry for some technical issues there. Now, we're going to go to a very quick break, but
10:19 just before we go, it's time for Kent's climate conundrum of the week.
10:25 So, this week's Kent climate conundrum, the question is, at what speed is strong wind
10:42 considered a storm? So, what speed is strong wind considered a storm? Now, that's from
10:48 the Beaufort scale that manages different levels of wind. We'll find out the answer
10:53 after the break. Now, coming up as well after the break, we'll have more environmental news
10:58 from across the county, such as a tiny piece of space called micrometeorites. They're being
11:04 collected from Kent cathedrals. I'll be joined by one of the scientists leading the form
11:12 and they are small spheres. They're formed from asteroids and they hit our atmosphere
11:16 at tens of thousands of miles per hour. I'll be joined by one of the scientists leading
11:21 the project, Matthias van Tuneken, after the break. He'll be telling me all about it. I
11:26 also joined one of them at the Canterbury Cathedral to see what they are up to. We'll
11:31 also find out how a group of paddle boarders are championing mental health while protecting
11:36 the environment and the river Medway from sewage and plastic pollution as well. I joined
11:41 them on the paddle boarding experience and you'd be gutted to know I didn't fall in.
11:44 That would have made funny TV, but no, I stayed nice and dry on my paddle board. See more
11:49 after this very short break. I'll see you then.
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15:05 Hello and welcome back to Kent on Climate, live on KMTV. Just before the break I asked
15:11 you Kent's climate conundrum of the week. I asked at what speed is strong wind considered
15:17 a storm? Well, the answer, 55 to 63 miles per hour. So if you got it in that bracket
15:24 you were right, 55 to 63 miles per hour. That's considered to be a storm on the Beaufort Wind
15:30 Scale. According to the scale, trees could be broken or uprooted, building damage is
15:35 considerable, large waves of 69 metres by the coast and reduced visibility too. The
15:40 top end of the scale, out of interest, a hurricane. Now that's considered 73 plus
15:45 miles per hour, so quite a way off. Well that's this week's Kent climate conundrum.
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16:02 Next, tiny pieces of space have been raining down on Earth for millions of years. They're
16:08 called micro-meteorites and they're being collected here in Kent. The small spheres
16:13 are half the width of a hair, formed from asteroids and hit our atmosphere at tens of
16:17 thousands of miles per hour. Scientists from the University of Kent are searching for them
16:22 on the roofs of cathedrals, including Rochester and Canterbury. Why? To unlock the unknown
16:27 origins of our universe.
16:31 These scientists are hoovering the roof of Canterbury Cathedral, but not to clean it
16:38 and not to collect just any old dust. These scientists are searching for cosmic dust,
16:45 tiny particles from asteroids orbiting Mars and Jupiter that have been shooting down to
16:51 Earth ever since time began. But how have these minuscule parts of our universe ended
16:57 up on the roofs of Kent's cathedrals?
17:01 Their rooftops are really large, so that's a large area that we're collecting from
17:05 that's been collecting cosmic dust. But we also choose rooftops in this case because
17:10 they've had no footfall on them or very limited footfall, so you haven't got people
17:14 walking around and displacing the dirt, taking those cosmic dust particles away with them.
17:19 The goal? To simply discover more about our universe.
17:25 They can preserve evidence of more organic materials, so the kinds of building blocks
17:30 that we have in life, which can then tell us about what kind of materials were brought
17:33 in to the Earth over its entire history from space.
17:38 Just to give you an idea of the kind of size of this cosmic dust they're looking for
17:43 on the roof behind me, here's a pound coin, something we use every single day. And just
17:49 on the surface alone, you could probably fit more than 4,000 micro-meteorites, and they're
17:55 all on that roof.
17:58 You may not be finding them in your garden any time soon, but Matthias has been to the
18:03 Natural History Museum in London to create mini-meteorite models so that we can see what
18:09 they look like.
18:11 Seeing them with the naked eye is very difficult because on average there are 200 microns in
18:17 size, which is one fifth of a millimetre, which is maybe twice as big as the width of
18:24 your hair. Thanks to these scans I was able to build 3D models of the particles, make
18:30 them bigger obviously, actually look like the original particles. You can see that they're
18:35 very spherical, even contain some bubbles in size. And this one for instance is from
18:42 the roof of the Natural History Museum.
18:45 The team are hoping to expand the project nationally and search for cosmic dust on ancient
18:51 roofs right across the UK. But with Kent's contribution collected, sorting can begin,
18:58 all to determine what signs of life have been right above our heads for millions of years.
19:04 Abbey Hook for KMTV in Canterbury.
19:08 Well I'm very pleased to say Matthias joins me on the line now to discuss this in more
19:12 detail. I think we could discuss this for the full half an hour that is Kent on Climate,
19:17 but tell me why did you start this project?
19:21 Well we always had the idea to look for micrometeorites on rooftops because it's something that's
19:27 been done for years already since 2005 I think by someone from Norway, so a guitarist, John
19:36 Larson, who started finding micrometeorites on rooftops. And while it's been done by
19:42 amateur scientists for years, there is no real scientific project focused on these urban
19:49 micrometeorites. So we had the idea to do it ourselves and to do that we needed big
19:55 roofs and very old roofs as well. So the cathedrals are perfect for that because there is a very
20:01 good record of what's been done on the roofs and how old they are.
20:07 What is it that you found? Is it what you expected?
20:11 Yes, yes, we found some very nice samples already from Canterbury Cathedral, about seven.
20:18 And well this is pretty much what we expected, yes, but at the same time what surprised me
20:25 is how fresh the particles were because usually when you collect them from Antarctica or other
20:31 very exotic places they are quite altered by the terrestrial environments. But on rooftops
20:38 they are very, very fresh so it's very nice for us.
20:42 And this is all to learn more about space, our universe, the origins, the origins of
20:47 life we had Penny saying as well there. But why is it so important to know that?
20:54 Well it's important I think to know our origins, so how our planet was formed, in what kind
21:01 of environments, for example the asterisks from which the micrometeorites come from were
21:09 formed 4.6 billion years ago when the solar system was very, very young and the planets
21:14 were not formed already. So knowing, like studying these tiny particles can tell us
21:20 a lot about the whole history of our solar system and maybe how we came to be.
21:27 It's an incredible project and could tell us a lot as you said about our whole universe
21:34 and beyond that. And it's incredible, I was so surprised how small they are, they
21:38 come from space, it seems so extraordinary. So what's next in the process? You take
21:43 them off the roof, you sort of sieve through the dirt on the roof and you find them, but
21:47 what's next for you?
21:50 Well once we have enough samples, maybe a few tens to hundreds, we can start to do statistical
21:57 studies, so try to extrapolate the number we get with possibly the number that comes
22:04 to us every year and also do chemical studies to determine what type of micrometeorites
22:11 there are and if they can tell us anything we didn't know about this material.
22:17 Amazing. And just my last question to you, where is this project going? Because I know
22:23 you're looking for funding to try and expand it nationally, just very quickly.
22:27 Well we try to get funding, yes, to expand this project, to really start the science
22:33 of this project and to expand it nationally, yes.
22:37 Amazing, Matthias. Well best of luck to you, I'll be getting on more roofs of cathedrals
22:42 with you I hope and following your journey too, it's really exciting stuff. Thank you
22:46 so much for your time this evening.
22:50 Next tonight, sometimes sport isn't about the speed but more about the need and paddleboarding
22:55 on Kent rivers is exactly what this group of enthusiasts thrive off. But their playing
23:00 ground is under threat, both from sewage discharge and plastic pollution. One paddleboarding
23:06 coach from Tunbridge Wells says it has a huge and devastating impact on her business. But
23:11 can she push through these murky waters and keep her business afloat? I joined a paddle
23:16 on the River Medway to find out.
23:19 A passion for paddling, protecting wildlife and reducing plastic. Here's a sport that
23:26 encompasses all three. Paddleboarding. 'Sup with Anna was born out of a love for the water
23:34 during a very isolated time in the pandemic and the water sport has since soared in popularity.
23:40 It's the fastest growing sport in UK at the moment. Definitely more so with female
23:47 attendance. So from my stats about 88% are women but also we have some men just a bit
23:54 more on the competitive side. So we have racing as well. We do loads of our members do race.
24:02 Yes, huge, huge growth in the last four years.
24:06 And Anna a huge issue that we've seen hit all the headlines recently as well is sewage
24:11 and the sewage discharge pollution in our rivers like the River Medway that we're on
24:15 right now. How worried are you about river pollution and what that could mean for your
24:19 business?
24:20 Super worried. There is more and more we hear about obviously because the paddleboarding
24:25 community is growing. So there's a big campaign out now by Lizzy Carr who is the founder of
24:30 Planet Patrol. We're actually testing the waters and it is huge. I mean every year I
24:36 probably have a one week off because of the algae and because of obviously the farmers
24:41 around us throwing all the chemicals in. You have to stop. So for me a week in the height
24:47 of the summer it's huge. And also obviously for the benefit of all these people that they
24:52 have mental health they want to be out on the water. It's not good. Definitely not good.
24:57 And wildlife, you know, not the last thing. Wildlife, you see dead fish, you see dead
25:03 sheep, you see... it's not good.
25:06 But it's not just sewage polluting the river.
25:09 I found a glass bottle, a shoe, someone was obviously drinking shots because there's loads
25:16 of shot glasses in there. There's a football if I didn't mention that. Plastic bottles,
25:22 loads of paper.
25:24 How long did it take you to find everything you've got today?
25:26 Probably about ten minutes in total. It was good but very sad for me.
25:33 Clearing up the river is just one way of giving back to the water they paddle on every day.
25:38 And not only does the sport boost their bodies, but these enthusiasts say it works magic for
25:44 their minds.
25:46 It makes your mind just go quiet, nothing stresses you out. Once you come out of your
25:51 paddle boarding it's like you are completely refreshed.
25:54 Really good in terms of thinking about in your head the balance, but also in your body.
26:02 So good for muscles all round.
26:04 It's fantastic, it really does help. Actually if I've not been out for a few days because
26:10 of work or family I start to feel that I need to get out.
26:15 It's not just stand up paddle boarding, sit down or kneeling down. You can also do yoga
26:20 on these boards and a litter pick as you go down the river. But also it's a pretty interesting
26:25 way to walk your dog.
26:27 Come on then.
26:29 Abbey Hook and Lola for KMTV.
26:35 I seemed to capture the last sunny day in September when I was out paddle boarding.
26:39 That's all we have time for on this week's episode of Kent on Climate. I'll be back again
26:43 next week. See you then. Bye bye.
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