Last night’s meeting, the 2nd year anniversary of our reading group and we discussed Bill McKibben’s book “Falter”. Over home made cherry brandy and cider, we reflected that two years of reading has enabled us to read ‘Falter” with enough understanding to read beyond the first shocking chapters and to be coaxed along by McKibbon’s gentle humour to his more optimistic 2 nd part. ‘Falter is the story of the dead-end aspects of human character which, if left unchallenged could to the demise of humanity and much of the biosphere as we know it. McKibben persuades us that all is not lost and he encourages us to believe in the collective power of peaceful protest to thwart personal greed, that threatens to bring down the the whole shaky edifice of modernity, along with the network of ecological relationships which hitherto have supported the whole of human history. Closer to home, we contrasted statistics that describes Britain as being in the world’s lowest 10% of biodiversity with the local signs of a ripe autumn where we see brambles, hazelnuts, sloes, crab apples all within a 5m length of hedge. On local tree planting we concluded that many more trees are needed for Britain, balancing carbon sequestration, biodiversity, water catchment and future timber needs is complex and mapping the extent and depths of peat bogs will add more provisos to the questions of what type of trees, how many and where. Later we discussed the significance of affordable workshops and low carbon self-build techniques, community orchards and green social prescribing as areas from which Shap could benefit. If these subjects are of interest, (particularly to younger readers and/or would be activists) please feel free to come to our next meeting on October 17 th , 7pm at the OCH (library building) where we will discuss Naomi Klein’s, “This Changes Everything.” 

Next two meetings, at 7pm in the OCH, October 17 th and November 21 st For fuerher details please contact Dave on 07484632210 or Peter 07837816795