previous day, but no reported deaths of anyone who has tested positive within the last 28 days. those of the figures for scotland and previously for wales. toots hibbert, frontman of the legendary reggae band toots and the maytals, has died at the age of 77. one of jamaica's most influential musicians, he helped popularise reggae in the 19605 with songs like pressure drop, monkey man and funky kingston. he even claimed to have coined the genre's name, on 1968's do the reggay. hibbert‘s family said he died on friday. he had recently been treated in hospital for suspected coronavirus. now it's time for a look at the weather. a bit ofa a bit of a return to summer soon, tomas? absolutely. it could even be a little too hot for some of us. it won't turn hot until monday in the south of the country, as is often the case, this is what we have right now, pleasant temperatures across the vast majority of uk but certainly cooler in the north—west of the country, increasing winds and a spell of wet weather to convert this evening for parts of northern ireland, certainly scotland, western scotla nd ireland, certainly scotland, western scotland will get the share of the rain over the next 24 hours. quite a mild night, 15 in belfast, breezy, blustery, possibly a bit of rain here, clear skies for many of us tonight in the south and in fact, sunday will be a sunny day. the many others, it will cloud over but where that yellow triangle is, that's where the rain could amount to about 100 millilitres across the western isles of scotland, so soggy, windy weather here. the rest of the country, bright day in the south, temperatures up to 25 and a brief hot spell on the wafer monday and tuesday, temperatures up to 30 celsius. hello this is bbc news. the headlines. britain is "on the edge of losing control" of coronavirus. a stark warning from one leading scientist following a sharp rise in cases. boris johnson defends his plans to over—ride parts of the brexit withdrawal agreement, saying the eu is looking to "carve up and divide" the uk. the first direct talks between afghanistan and the taliban take place in qatar. the afghans say they want to end the war. including men, women, minorities and victims of war, then both sides will be the peace heroes. sir terence conran, the british designer who revolutionised retail and decor has died aged 88. and the new premier league season begins, with the champions liverpool hosting leeds united, who are back after an absence of 16 years. now on bbc news, philippa thomas hears from people around the world about their extraordinary experiences during the pandemic and how covid—19 has changed their lives. welcome to coronavirus: your stories, a programme about how covid—19 is changing lives around the world. i'm philippa thomas and this week we are looking at nature and climate. how our natural environment can help us as individuals in times like this and also the personal story of two activists who want the global pandemic to throw more light on the global climate emergency. later, we will hear from ireland about one way of turning to nature in stressful times, with growing interest in the traditional practices of forest medicine like forest bathing. and from sweden, how health—based architecture can help us now to redesign the spaces around us, try to stay healthy and be more resilient to infection. but first, how is the covid—19 pandemic changing climate activism? we have the personal story of two campaigners on either side of the atlantic. shante wolfe is the national field directorfor sunrise, a youth—led movement in the united states fighting to tackle the environmental crisis. she says the pandemic has shone a light on the most vulnerable in society who are most at risk from the effects of climate change. and in london, todd smith is an airline pilot turned front line activist with extinction rebellion. he feels the pandemic makes it more urgent than ever to rethink the world's climate policies and act before it is too late. but what brought these campaigners to the climate cause and how have they been changed by the covid—19 pandemic? we spoke first to shante wolfe of sunrise in birmingham, alabama. she said, perhaps surprisingly, she does not feel the pandemic has shifted attention away from the global climate emergency. honestly i think the issue of millions on unemployment right now searching forjobs and millions losing health insurance at the height of terrible fire seasons in california and a terrible hurricane season in the south has made an emphasis on climate change now more than ever in the pandemic. we've have had to figure out in several ways how we can accommodate the most vulnerable of our population in this pandemic, for example, most of the time in the summer everywhere you go in the united states there are cooling shelters that people can go to. how can you have a cooling shelter and adhere to cdc guidelines so that folks don't catch the virus because they are congregated together? 0n the flip side of that you have hurricane season where at lake charles in louisiana, constituents there are currently suffering from a category 4 hurricane thatjust hit, so you have thousands of people who are displaced in the middle of a pandemic and that causes us to ask ourselves how can we treat those who are suffering? you may have seen several times that those in our country who are called essential workers have been held up as heroes but how can we move past reverence to justice for those who are very vulnerable in these moments? so i think now more than ever the issue of climate in this pandemic is important. is that what you thought when we first went into lockdown, when the pandemic first hit? i don't think so and i think that lack of engaging how serious this was prompted both a sense of having to buckle down a little harder and it forced the hand of collaboration and activism in a way we have never seen because now that we are suffering from outstanding rates of death and positive cases, we have had to figure out how we can make sure that the show goes on because we also have a very important election season in the middle of this pandemic. i think we were all, we all underestimated it to a certain degree, i will admit that, yes. when you say you had to figure out how the show goes on, how have you had to change your tactics? what many of us associate with climate action is huge mass gatherings and making your presence felt by the numbers. that is more dangerous now. it absolutely is more dangerous. however, what we found out is that at the height of the uprising. so in the middle of the pandemic we also saw, you know, people taking to the streets for various causes because there is a lot going on in america right now, for better orfor worse. so what we decided to do at sunrise is create multiple tiers of engagement so that people could feel comfortable engaging in our actions safely. for example, a real barrier we had to participation was that before the pandemic we had planned for pretty large—scale outdoor earth day actions. now that most folks are in lockdown we have to figure out how to create socially distanced options for people to engage in and we came up with this idea called wide—awa kes. this is one tier where if you want to still go out we provide ppe and the necessary things for feeling safe and people go to their respective legislator or representatives homes at the crack of sunrise to alert them that, hey, millions of people in this world right now are currently having to decide between insulin or paying their bills. they have to decide between going outside or being displaced due to other things outside of their control that the pandemic has coerced. let me bring this back to the personal. on this programme we are looking at how covid—19 has changed things for us. when you talk to your own family and friends about what you do, it must be more challenging in a time of covid. i think there are two truths to that answer. it is challenging to talk about climate when my family wakes up in the first thing is how are we going to provide and put food on the table for my mum, for my sister, for my little sister's baby who was brought into this world in the middle of a pandemic and an uprising. these are the things that people are thinking about so, like i said earlier, it was up to me to talk to my mum on how are these things are interconnected — how is climate and a better quality of life and poverty all connected? and we have seen examples of that. with our hurricane season i have family members and close friends in louisiana right now that are displaced and currently forced out of quarantine because their homes were ransacked by the latest hurricane that came through. so when we talk about climate, we talk about it from a sense of environmentaljustice because true climate activism does achieve justice for everyone and when we talk about it from that lens, my family is a lot more receptive on our zoom calls on the weekend and my mum always tells me i'm a tree hugger but she has progressed from saying i'm a tree—hugger to saying i am someone who is actually fighting on behalf of something that can drastically change the course of our next decade for the better. shante wolfe in alabama. like shante, todd smith, of extinction rebellion says his own experience pushed him towards climate activism. but his personal story is rather different. as a former airline pilot for thomas cook i spent seven years learning to be a pilot and i grew up in a working class family. my dad, a builder, told me to do a job i would enjoy and a few years into the industry, unfortunately about 2.5 years ago i had my medical revoked due to a diagnosis of lyme disease which has become much more prevalent in the uk due to warm summers and milder winters. that was a wake—up call for me and gave me a moment to reflect and at the time i had off work we saw the rise of extinction rebellion in london and i was compelled to try and understand why people were taking to the streets in masses, people from all walks of society and i really made it my mission to understand the science. i wanted to get involved in extinction rebellion, i was fully behind their cause but i was conflicted about my career choice and the implications of me joining a movement like xr. so four months ago with the covid lockdown, that was just the final straw for me. we realised our human vulnerabilities and that was the beginning of myjourney and the last four months or so i have now made this my life's work, really. i am doing it seven days a week. how do people within the climate action movement react to you as a former airline pilot? you spent years with an industry that contributes a lot to emissions. absolutely. from day one when i very first joined an xr meeting i was welcomed from the beginning. at the time i was still flying as well and we welcome people from all sectors. there is no blaming and shaming in extinction rebellion and we really need to be working with workers in carbon heavy industries and promoting the relief from the government to transition to a lower carbon sector, so we really need those lower carbon sectorjobs to be created. workers in carbon heavy industry should be re—educated to transition to lower carbon. in the airline industry alone we can see up to 70,000 airline workers lose theirjobs this year, caused by the economic foundation due to covid. we really need to be supporting these workers and creating the jobs in the green sector. todd, if i can come back to you on how you are campaigning. you are there and there are crowds campaigning and protesting about the urgency of climate action and yet this is a time when we are not meant to be gathering in crowds. are you changing tactics? we are taking all the recommended precautions, social distancing, use of masks and we feel the time to act is now. 0ur government's own advisors told them to start preparing for a rise of four degrees in the world and that will mean billions of people will lose their lives. vast parts of africa will be uninhabitable and spain will look like a desert. the international energy agency say we have six months to act and that was two months ago. so if we don't focus on a green recovery from this pandemic, we could see a high spike of c02 emissions moving forward. i just feel like i have to be out here. we delayed our action in spring already and are taking necessary precautions, as i said. so this is just the time to act, the time to act is now and we need to support the climate ecological emergency bill and do everything we can to see the next much bigger wave, the climate ecological emergency. when the pandemic again, even now, it is the thing that has grabbed the attention of all of us around the world. has it shifted energies away from the climate emergency? it is a great question, philippa. you know, i think this is probably the first time in human history where the whole of the planet's population have been on a collective consciousness with a common threat, and i really feel like it has exposed our human vulnerabilities and it has given a lot of people time for reflection — it's such a tragedy that we needed a global pandemic for potentially a moment to realise that we do need to take the natural world seriously and we have got to really listen to the scientists. now, we've listened to the scientists during this pandemic and it's absolutely crucial that we listen to the science now when it comes to the climate ecological emergency, which affects all of humanity and i have made the decision that i'm no longer am going to return to flying passenger jets because i think it is really important to walk the walk and lead by example, and the un say that we need to be below two tonnes of c02 per year to be sustainable and one flight from london to bangkok would be 3.5 tonnes of c02 alone. todd, i am hearing a great deal of conviction from you about the way you've changed your life. you told me a little earlier, you come from a working—class background, being an airline pilot was something you wanted to be. how have family and friends reacted to this dramatic change? have you had to do some persuading or have some pretty frank discussions? i could not have become a pilot without the support of my mum and dad who remortgaged their house and they essentially lent me their retirement money and i still owe them £100,000. initially, they were, you know, they did not really understand why i wanted to leave this fantastic career which i'd spent so long training to do. and i am passionate about flying, of course, but, as pilots, we always want to fly passengers to the original planned destination but, if we encounter adverse weather en route or something that might jeopardise the safety of the flight, without hesitation, we would divert and change trajectory. and it is the only way i can see that we can make the systemic changes required to deal with this emergency effectively. todd smith, in london. you're watching coronavirus: your stories, a programme about how covid—19 is changing lives around the world. i'm philippa thomas. and this week we're thinking about how the pandemic has made us reassess our natural environment. next, getting out into nature and bringing nature home to us. how to link the great outdoors with our personal health and peace of mind. from sweden, the man seen by many as the godfather of health—based architecture, professor roger ulrich, about what that means and how it can help us right now. and from ireland, the founder of the forest therapy institute, nature and well—being consultant, shirley gleeson. forest bathing, the concept came from japan in the 1980s, so you are engaging your five senses in the natural environment. so you're listening to the bird songs, to the natural sounds of the forest, you're smelling the different aromas, maybe from the forest floor, you are walking mindfully in nature and slowing down, you are watching what is moving. so you're taking in your environment with all your five senses. so it is really mindfulness in nature, engaging them through nature immersive experiences, and getting them to slow down and reflect. roger, we have always known, i suppose, that a walk in the woods is good for us. what does scientific evidence tell us about exposure to nature? exposure to nature, even viewing nature, even a realistic nature video accompanied by nature sounds can quite quickly produce significant reduction of stress. shirley, the kind of effects roger is talking about, do you see that when you are out in the forest with people who've come to you for therapy? yes, we would see that all the time in the forest. people would report feeling calmer, their fast thoughts in their heads would really reduce, they would slow down. when people could not leave their homes, we were running a number of nature and well—being sessions online so we would bring nature to them. like roger said, the evidence base around viewing nature scenes or hearing nature recordings is quite strong. so even when they can't leave their homes, it is possible to have a forest—bathing experience. but also, if you think about people in hospitals, people in nursing homes, people in prisons that never or rarely get access to nature, that is where you can bring nature into them, to help promote their well—being. have you had more demand, shirley, because of the covid pandemic and the effect on us all? yes, there's been a huge demand because of the pandemic, because there's huge increase in stress and anxiety that people are experiencing. there is so much uncertainty around but also what we found is that now people have had a time, a period of time may be out of the workforce for a little while, they have reconnected with their nearby nature so the nature on their doorstep so they are really seeing the value and importance of the nature that surrounds them. roger, you were telling us about the evidence you've gathered and you've published the ground—breaking paper back in 1984, showing the impact of health care environments both for patients and for medical staff — are you seeing that now? i published a study which found that, if hospital patients recovering from abdominal surgery and have spent, at the time, about a week in the hospital, after surgery, were more or less randomly assigned to rooms with bedside window views of nature — trees, in this case — they had significantly better post—operative recoveries than equivalent matched patients assigned more or less randomly to the same types of room, with the same staff, except they had bedside window views of a brick wall for their week. those with the nature view had lower levels of emotional distress, they experienced significantly less pain. if i can pick up on that, if you fast—forward to today and the covid crisis and so many of us thinking about hospitals, or the possibility of a hospital, are you seeing the environment in clinical settings make a difference, do you think, to covid patients, to their recovery? i know of no study yet published, quality study, that's examined the effects of nature on patients who are hospitalised or homebound with covid. probably it is a matter of time, probably such studies are in progress. i do think however that we have some good research, quite pertinent to covid and staff stress. so i think it is noteworthy that a study published a few months before coronavirus hit showed that if nurses were assigned to take a daily break for about 25 minutes a day over six work weeks, in contrast to being assigned randomly to take an equivalent break in an attractive indoor break room, those with the break in the garden, evidenced significantly really substantially, reduced burn—out and that is good news. following on from what roger has been saying, in terms of burn—out, that is a real concern from a mental health and physical health perspective. i've had contact with a number of health professionals that are experiencing extreme burn—out, they do not know how they are going to manage. we need to look at alternatives to what is currently there, in terms of the current health system. and i think that is where the work and nature comes in, you know, like forest bathing, forest therapy, eco—thera py, because that provides an alternative to the current health service offering. we're not saying it is better, we're not saying it is better at all, but it is an adjunctive to current treatment, and i think that that is what is going to be needed, is there's going to be investment needed in nature—based interventions, in green care, to look at innovative solutions for mental health. shirley, we focus a lot, in this programme, on personal stories and i think you heard from a nurse or a clinical practitioner in denmark? that's right. one of our trainers has ran some interventions in denmark and a nurse who worked in cardiology in denmark was experiencing work—related stress and difficulties sleeping, so what she said was, after the six—week forest therapy intervention, her sleep had really improved, she could gain greater clarity and perspective into her situation and the stress symptoms had really reduced. the green outdoor or nature as a resource — we do not have equal access to it. in many countries or areas there is no great green outdoors. roger, i know you're looking at architecture and you're looking at public health. that is a concern, this unequal access? unequal access, yes. i am american—born, my wife is swedish, and it is no accident that we targeted an area of sweden to live in and retire in some years ago. here, nature is ubiquitous in the cities, even in larger cities. and regarding the equity question, anyone, you do not have to be wealthy to have access to nature or even forests. i think this is really an urban planning issue, it's a political issue, and clearly, in many countries, we need a lot more green space. roger ulrich, in stockholm, and shirley gleeson, in dublin, ending this week's edition on covid climate and nature. i'm philippa thomas, thank you for watching coronavirus: your stories. well, the weather is looking pretty good for most of us for the rest of saturday. a lot of dry weather about. tomorrow, also a decent day. however, not absolutely everywhere. in fact, across western scotland, farfrom in fact, across western scotland, far from it. it's in fact, across western scotland, farfrom it. it's going to in fact, across western scotland, far from it. it's going to turn very wet and windy and this is the reason. this elongated weather front across the north atlantic, in fact stretching all the way to almost eastern seaboard of the us and it is heading in our direction. it is already reaches and you can see where the rain is around early evening in parts of northern and western scotland. the wind is freshening here as well, and the other side of the country, you can see it's a different story, 21 degrees in london and some sunshine. this evening and overnight, it stays dry across the bulk of england and wales, northern ireland will have a bit of rain and most of the rain will fall across western scotland. not particularly work there in the north—east of scotland. the south will stay dry and clear in places like plymouth, southampton, london, temperatures at 12 or 13 degrees, tomorrow, staying clear across the south, even some sunshine. figure cloud elsewhere across the uk, but particularly heavy rain across the western isles of scotland, could be as much as 100 millimetres of rain, thatis as much as 100 millimetres of rain, that is a lot. very windy as well. 19 degrees in glasgow tomorrow, london heating up to around 25 degrees and we are in for a brief hot spell this coming week. in fact, temperatures could hit 30 degrees across the south—east of the uk. high pressure dominates the weather on monday across much of the continent, on the edge of this high pressure, we have a very warm current of air coming out of spain and also france, spreading in a dry, hotair, and also france, spreading in a dry, hot air, not particularly unusual for the time of the year, these temperatures tend to happen in september, at least now and then, but certainly not that common. this is what it looks like on monday, not physically hot on the north—west of the country, 19 or 20 degrees. the mid or high 20s across central england and up to 30 in london. possibly 30 again on tuesday and then a slow decline in the temperatures as we go through the rest of the week, certainly back to normal by the time we get around and friday. that's it from me. this is bbc news. i'm lukwesa burak. the headlines at 3... britain is "on the edge of losing control" of coronavirus — a stark warning from one leading scientist following a sharp rise in cases. this is still a very widely distributed infection, it's across the whole of the uk and by every measure, the numbers are going up. the university of oxford and astrazeneca have restarted clinical trials of their coronavirus vaccine which was halted after a volunteer fell ill. boris johnson defends his plans to override parts of the brexit withdrawal agreement, saying the eu is looking to "carve up and divide" the uk. sir terence conran — the british designer

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