It’s been windy out, we just had Storm Floris (04 August 2025). The fire, in Edinburgh on Arthur’s Seat yesterday (10 August 2025) was made worse by wind fanning the flames up the steep slopes. Wind clearly made that incident worse—but didn’t we hear something about the world becoming less windy, and would that be a good thing?

Remember “Global Terrestrial Stilling”? Between about 1980 and 2010, researchers reported roughly a 10% decline in near-surface wind speeds over land. For a moment we worried that the planet’s winds were under threat. Since then, evidence suggests a partial rebound in many regions. So the short answer is ‘don’t worry’ - there will be about the same wind as always. Down in the boundary layer—the thin slice of air we live in—what most of us feel on a breezy day is about bicycle speed: 10–15 mph. Higher up it’s windier, more like car speeds: often 20–30 mph on average. Higher still, in the jet-stream zone, winds can exceed 180 mph at times. So here’s my disclaimer for all us armchair climate scientists: talking about “wind” as one thing is the trap that global warming never was.

Stay invested in wind farms. Wind is here to stay, wind is heat redistribution. It exists because we have a planet, an atmosphere, and uneven heating from the Sun. If winds stopped, the tropics would bake, the poles would deepen their freeze, and day–night swings would turn brutal. Thanks to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, pressure and temperature gradients drive motion—so there will always be wind. We should worry about breaking the ecosystem but we shouldn’t worry about breaking the wind.

Which brings me to Willow Worlds. At six months old, they’re already acting as a local wind-break: the tallest branches are swaying 3 metres overhead. Some people calculate that this could cut wind by up to 50% directly behind it and create useful shelter farther out. That might mean someone sleeps better, that a house rattles less on stormy nights, and energy bills come down a little—exactly the kind of everyday benefit people mean by “ecosystem services.”

Of course, a bit of rewilding isn’t a substitute for housing reform or social work. But Willow Worlds is nice—and “nice” deserves respect. Greenery does furnish a life.

Willow Worlds also helped Levenmouth Academy to get short-listed for the Scotland’s Finest Woods (Schools) Award 2025, recieving this certificate. From our point of view, it has a ‘darkly comic’ design which we really enjoyed. (For those who can’t see it: The background to the certificate is a pile of chain-sawed tree trunks piled up as if on the back of a timber truck.) Scotland’s Finest Woods are very nice and we’re proud of our certificate.

Anyway, this project is now a year old. I think we’ve got a ‘proof of concept’ that it works in lowland Scotland. There is no other tree plantation method that reaches 3 metres in 6 months - so it’s time to start asking around for people to get involved for next year’s planting.

We want to create more Willow Worlds elsewhere, indeed the growing willows demand to be cut and planted elsewhere. If anyone out there wants a willow fedge planted this winter - please message me and we’ll work something out. Please help our project grow!

That’s all for now. Thank you for listening to the Willow Worlds Substack.

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