Meeting Summaries 2015 - 2016
In the Autumn of 2015 we started to consider the problems of waste and concentrated of finding out about plastics and why their useful properties make them a serious problem when it comes to their disposal. The problem is so massive partly because of the population problem so we spent a couple of sessions looking at population growth using a presentation by Professor Hans Rosling in which he explores many aspects of the topic.
By the early Spring of 2016 we were all wanting to talk about the floods to try to understand why they happened and to consider what can be done to alleviate future incidents. There was an interesting talk in Keswick by Professor Chris Rapley which a few of us attended and reported his ideas on Climate Change to the rest of the group.
Since then we have discussed local, small scale ways to reduce floods before they cause havoc in towns and visited the Thacka Beck and Eycott Hill nature reserves where measures have been taken. Thacka Beck is a particularly interesting reserve where in 2011 a European funded project (Adaptive Land use for Flood Alleviation) created a holding basin with a sluice gate which has been used in times of excessive rain to hold back water which would otherwise flood Penrith.
In the last meeting in July 2016 a number of members provided interesting topics for discussion ranging from the Elterwater Project to reduce phosphate build up to Electricity from domestic waste and the problems with renewable energy and energy saving lamps.