Tim Smedley

England

Journalist, Book Author and Copywriter at Freelance

Freelance Features Writer at The Times

Environmental Writer at BBC

Environmental writer (BBC, FT, Guardian, etc) & book author. Find me here now: @timsmedley.bsky.social #ClearingTheAir: https://t.co/PSFmRXx03t #TheLastDrop: https://t.co/JNCn1xc55B

Articles

Don’t drain the swamp-refill it

2 weeks ago | prospectmagazine.co.uk | Tim Smedley

As I walk across the newly pedestrianised Hammersmith bridge, London is as it should be—grey and rainy. Ordinarily, getting drenched on the way to an interview might be annoying. But today it couldn’t be more apt, because I’m on my way to the London Wetland Centre. And as the driest spring in 69 years finally breaks, the question at hand is this: how do we hold onto the rain when it falls, to avert the droughts to come?
Why isn’t it raining?

1 month ago | prospectmagazine.co.uk | Tim Smedley

When I was first asked to write this column, among the editor’s requests were that I serve as “a guide through the climate crisis”. To do so, I tend to look for solutions, be they nature-based or policy, seek out experts or dig through scientific reports. But sometimes you only need to look out the window to understand what is happening. The wettest 18-month period in England since Met Office records began in 1836 was from October 2022 to March 2024, with 1,695.9mm of rain.
The Benefits of Letting your Lawn Go Wild

1 month ago | medium.com | Tim Smedley

I took part in a wildflower charity’s ‘No Mow May’ campaign, and discovered a surprising bounty of benefits. I’ve always liked mowing the lawn. Perhaps it’s a childhood nostalgia thing, having watched my dad do it seemingly every weekend in summer. The smell, the neat intermittent stripes, the angry roar as the mower lifted for each turn.
Labour’s mission? Make England green and pleasant once more

1 month ago | prospectmagazine.co.uk | Tim Smedley

I write this with my T-shirt still sodden with rain. After the driest spring in 69 years, the water butts in my garden ran dry in May. Normally, that happens in July or August or not at all. Desperate for rain, then, I was eagerly anticipating this week’s thunderstorms. Thunderstorms in May. Normally they happen in July, or… you get the picture.
The New Climate. New(s)letter #18

1 month ago | medium.com | Tim Smedley

The only publication for climate action, covering the environment, biodiversity, net zero, renewable energy and regenerative approaches. It’s time for The New Climate. Follow publicationAsk not what you can do for your country…Nationalism is a problem. And I don’t just mean the rampant fascist dictatorial kind. I mean all flag-waving exceptionalism and (exclusive) patriotism, borders and all. Some say that we have a migrant crisis.
In Britain, we burn precious peatland for sport

2 months ago | prospectmagazine.co.uk | Tim Smedley

“To keep this moor viable we have to raise 6,000 grouse a season, which we do by killing everything else that moves,” says Viscount Deveroux, the alter-ego of comedian Henry Morris. Walking a moor, dressed in tweed and with 12-gauge shotgun in hand, he continues: “Do you know there are people who say that driven grouse shooting is a screamingly elitist anachronism whose main proponents own the majority of our countryside yet have absolutely no interest in our shared natural history?
Water companies make us look like April fools

2 months ago | prospectmagazine.co.uk | Tim Smedley

I’m writing this on 1st April. My eldest daughter has taped over the light switch in the kitchen. My youngest put pepper in my tea. One of them has drawn on the toilet roll. And my water bill went up by 31 per cent overnight, despite going to one of the biggest offenders during the sewage scandal, a company that has amassed £19bn in debt. The odd one out among the April Fools’ Day pranks is not immediately obvious.
Caroline Lucas and Rupert Read on climate activism after Just Stop Oil

Mar 28, 2025 | prospectmagazine.co.uk | Tim Smedley |Caroline Lucas

Rupert Read, who helped launch Extinction Rebellion (XR), has long had doubts about the tactics of climate activists. He pauses halfway through our Zoom call with Caroline Lucas, former Green MP, to reminisce about the early days of XR, and introducing Lucas “to the wild crowd outside parliament…at the first ever Extinction Rebellion action in London, October 31, 2018!” He still remembers the date with ease; it was a foundational time for him and for many climate activists.
The New Climate. New(s)letter #17

Mar 26, 2025 | medium.com | Tim Smedley

Soil and substance (and the collapse of global world order)Tim Smedley·FollowPublished inThe New Climate. ·Sent as aNewsletter·6 min read·--Photo by Steven Weeks on UnsplashPerhaps it’s the emergence of spring (if you’re in the Northern hemisphere) that has had us thinking about soil this month. Each year, as if by miracle, green shoots start to reappear out of the brown stuff, and the carbon cycle starts all over again.
The Last Drop: Solving the World’s Water Crisis

Mar 21, 2025 | libraryjournal.com | Tim Smedley

. May 2024. 416p. ISBN 9781529058178. pap. $18.99. SCI COPY ISBN With a topic as large as the global water crisis, environmental journalist Smedley ( Clearing the Air: The Beginning and the End of Air Pollution) has to pick and choose his examples to elaborate on the problem’s nature and the increasingly urgent solutions. Readers will find the most familiar cases of drought in this book, including examples from the southwestern United States and the Middle East.