What’s a piece of media (book, movie, song) that changed how you see the world?
The book that changed how I see the world was The Weather Machine by Nigel Calder.
I was thirteen when I read it. It was really aimed at readers older and better informed than I was, but that didn’t matter. It opened my eyes to something I’d never considered before: that weather wasn’t simply something that happened to us; it was a vast, interconnected system governed by physics, chemistry and biology. Suddenly, clouds, winds, and storms weren’t just scenery. They became processes that could be understood.
That book sparked a lifelong fascination with the atmosphere and the natural world. It nudged me towards studying geography and environmental science, eventually leading me to graduate from Oxford’s School of Geography and the Environment.
Five decades later, I can still trace a direct line back to those first pages. I’m now an elected Green Party councillor and an active environmentalist.
By a pleasing coincidence, I’ve just returned from the day-long Wilder Ouze Conference at Lewes Town Hall. It brought together an extraordinary range of organisations and people working for nature’s recovery. During the day, I spoke with people from Love Our Ouse, Rights for Rivers, the Woodland Trust, Sussex Wildlife Trust, Kew Wakehurst, Markstakes Common, Lewes District Council, East Sussex County Council and Wealden District Council, all united by a shared concern for the future of our landscapes and ecosystems.
It’s remarkable to think that a single book, picked up by a curious thirteen-year-old, could quietly shape the course of an entire lifetime. Every now and then, a book doesn’t just teach you something new; it gives you a different lens through which to see the world. The Weather Machine did exactly that for me.
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