I’m enjoying being absorbed by The Secret World of Weather, by Tristan Gooley. It reveals to the reader secret signs all around us about how the weather is likely to behave. Signs that hide in plain sight, that we have forgotten to notice.
The repeating theme in the early chapters: modern forecasting models deal with macro effects, the movement of large masses of air or wind high above our heads. These are what the weather apps tell us about.
These models ignore the local effects: landscape, ground cover type, sun traps. But it is at this scale that we experience the weather, and it is at this local level we need to make decisions: what to wear, where to sit, where to plant things.
Reading those signs is to reconnect ourselves with our local landscape, an example of the sort of local interconnectedness that regenerative design needs.
When we ignore the local detail, we have to compensate with more effort: more heating, cooling, protection. We end up working against the conditions rather than with them.
When we appreciate the local lie of the land, we can learn to work with what’s already there – and learn to live and even thrive within it.