Recently, colleagues at Berkshire, Buckinghamshire & Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust came together to watch The People’s Emergency Briefing, a film featuring leading scientists and experts explaining the climate and nature crisis and what we can still do about it.

It is not an easy film to watch. The evidence is sobering, and the pace of change can feel frightening. Yet this is not a film without hope. Its central message is that many of the solutions already exist. Many of the answers are within reach, we simply need to stop treating them as ideas for the future and start putting them to work today.

Climate change and nature loss are sometimes discussed as distant or separate problems. Across Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, they are neither.

Hotter, drier summers will make some crops harder to grow and place greater pressure on farmers, soils and water supplies. They also leave grassland, crops and wildlife habitats more vulnerable to fire, a risk we are already seeing here across the three counties we work in. 

More intense rainfall will increase the risk of flooding, particularly where rivers have become disconnected from their floodplains and landscapes can no longer hold water as they once did. Wildlife already struggling within fragmented habitats will have to cope with further extremes of heat, drought, fire and flood.

These effects reach into our food, health, homes and local economy. Nature is not something that sits beyond our towns and villages, we live within it and depend upon the same healthy soils, clean water, stable climate and functioning ecosystems as every other living thing.

But the future is not yet written. 

Across our regions, people are already showing what practical action looks like. Farmers are testing new ways to protect soils, use water more carefully and produce food in a changing climate. 

Communities are looking after parks, verges, rivers and other green spaces. Homes, schools and businesses are generating cleaner energy. Wetlands, woodlands and floodplains can be restored so that landscapes absorb water, store carbon, cool the air and provide space for wildlife.

Technology and innovation will be important, from more efficient farming methods to renewable energy and better systems for storing and reusing water. So too will the quieter work happening in gardens, neighbourhoods and community groups: planting for pollinators, reducing pesticide use, wasting less food, eating more plant-based meals where we can, saving energy and making room for nature. Farmers will need support to adapt their businesses.

Not every action is possible for every person. Cost, where we live, health and access all shape the choices available to us. This is why individual changes must be accompanied by action from government and business. But each of us can begin somewhere, and small actions become more powerful when we take them together.

Our staff discussion after the screening ended not in despair, but with a sense of determination. People wanted to share the film, continue the conversation and consider what more we could do within our organisation, across our communities and alongside decision-makers.

Perhaps that is where change begins, gathering people together and asking a shared question: “What can we do here?”

You could start by organising a screening of The People’s Emergency Briefing in your workplace, school, village hall or community group. Invite people to stay afterwards, talk about what they have heard and choose one or two practical actions to take together.

The challenges are serious, but we are not powerless. Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire are full of people who care, with knowledge and imagination. The next step is to turn that care into action.