Brian Back was visiting the island for two nights to give a talk to the local branch of the Channel Islands Group of Professional Engineers and on this occasion his chosen topic was climate change, and how better engineering could help to manage its impacts. ‘It’s about making things smarter,’ he said.
But his first hurdle was finding somewhere to stay in the island in mid-September, and he ended up having to book two nights in different hotels because of the lack of space.
‘With potential global warming, the Mediterranean and all those areas may become too hot for holidays, and people may want to come to the Channel Islands because of your more temperate climate, because of the nice sea breezes, and you’re surrounded by the oceans, which are a natural coolant,’ he said.
‘The problem you have now is you appear to be already maxed out on Guernsey with hotels. There is no room at the inn.’
Mr Back is a senior warden of The Worshipful Company of Engineers, a modern livery company of the City of London that represents and supports the engineering profession.
‘It was created to protect trades, protect the import-export of materials and so on into the city of London, and to instil a standard.’
Each year the group has a gathering outside of the UK and next year this will be held in Jersey, it will see about 40 couples attending from all over the country. This might have taken place in Guernsey, but Mr Back did not think the island would have had the capacity.
His talk focused on practical engineering that could help the island, including an existing technology which he has patented that can be retrofitted to sewers where it acts as a flow regulator.
This enables the flow to be controlled and to reduce the number combined sewer overflows – incidents which can lead to sewage and plastics entering the sea.
Mr Back said a goal of the Worshipful Company of Engineers was to encourage future engineers, and in line with that next year the local CIGPE group is set to organise a competition among students. But he said that anyone interested in the topic should start dabbling with it early.
‘I would say to budding engineers: “Make it a hobby before you you start taking your STEM subjects”.’
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