Sir, – Your report, Mothers-to-be put babies at risk (November 27) is as stark and accurate as it is frightening.
Nowhere I know typifies more the challenge to health authorities and to society in general than the main entrance to Ninewells Hospital in Dundee.
Without fail, every time I am there I see heavily pregnant women standing unchallenged and smoking directly in front of the no-smoking signs or sitting in family groups of five or more,all smoking in the quiet garden area where the voice of doom emerges from the public-address system telling them the area is strictly no-smoking and that they should extinguish all cigarettes.
I have heard concerned passers-by many times either urging or, worse, berating these smokers for the undoubted damage they are doing to themselves and their unborn children.
Many of the replies are hostile and unprintable.
The NHS Tayside spokesman quoted is right to highlight the many first-class professional services available to help people stop smoking.
Excellent though that is, I have heard it all before. What I have never seen or heard is any attempt to deliver or highlight those services on the spot that is at places like the front door or quiet garden at Ninewells.
Smoking is an addiction, just as drugs and alcohol are.
In my career as a journalist and television producer I have met mothers who bitterly regret not following the health advice.
Their babies born were with heroin addiction or damaged severely by foetal alcohol syndrome, or smoking. They are to be pitied and supported, not vilified.
Some cannot shake off the guilt and resort tragically to the only way they can think of to stop the pain. Clearly, a visionary approach is needed, in addition to what is already available.
I am not advocating a heavy squad of security people confronting smokers who are pregnant, or indeed others who flout the rules at the hospitals, dishing out fines, ejecting smokers from the grounds or denying treatment to the addicted.
But unless and until the outreach mission gets to the very frontline, where it is so obviously needed, I fear we will never make progress.
Michael Mulford. 82 Hogarth Drive, Cupar.
Methil turbine a moneypit
Sir, – Thanks to your business writer Ian Forsyth for reminding me, as if I could forget, of the ongoing uncertainty around the Samsung, soon-to-be Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult (OREC), 7MW turbine just off the shores of the Methil Energy Park.
I am delighted to hear that no money will change hands between OREC and Samsung as the former takes ownership’s of Scottish Enterprises record-breaking white elephant.
If any party were to receive payment it is Scottish taxpayers, who have provided more than £6 million to fund the Methil turbine.
I would wager that apart from a few salaries and loss of face, the Korean company is getting out of jail without repaying a penny to the Scottish exchequer for its adventure.
Now OREC claim that they will run the turbine as “the world’s largest open-access wind turbine dedicated to research”.
Samsung could not run the turbine and meet noise conditions protecting the long-suffering residents of Methil, so how OREC expects to deliver maximum value from the turbine without turning the blades is hard to see.
The consent was for construction, operation and testing of turbines for a maximum of five years following commissioning of the original turbine.
Two years into that consent and, apart from annoying the residents of Methil, the turbine has been a complete waste of taxpayers’ funds.
Rather than putting it on life support, it should be taken down and its blades sent back to Denmark, its tower to China and its working bits to Korea.
Graham Lang. Westermost, Coaltown of Calange, Ceres.
Managers miss council job cuts
Sir, – A few weeks ago, after it was announced that there would be job cuts at Dundee City Council, you printed a letter of mine.
In the letter I said I hoped the cuts would be at management level not the usual ground level staff. It is a pity I did not place a bet on it.
Now we learn of a threat to 45 ground staff and street cleaners, the men and women who keep our parks tidy but not a single £80,000 a year manager, not a single pen-pusher earning £50,000.
Ground staff are lucky if they make £20,000 annually.
I seem to be missing something, so correct me if I am wrong. The SNP continually accuses Westminster of picking on the ordinary working man to protect the high earners.
Is this a case of the pot calling the kettle black?
Bill Duthie. 25 St Fillans Road, Dundee.
Less than fair approach
Sir, – We are informed almost daily about the tragic death of Sheku Bayoh.
As this case is the subject of an ongoing inquiry, many readers will be surprised that Mr Bayoh’s family and solicitor have had private interviews with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland, Chief Constable Stephen House and others.
Readers will also be surprised that as an even-handed courtesy, the representatives and the family of the woman police officer involved, who is unlikely to return to work due to her health, have not had a meeting with the above.
RHL Mulheron. 28 Cowgate, Tayport.
Fossil fuels must be replaced
Sir, – When Dr John Cameron was a student, his text books (like mine) would have given the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as 0.30% or 300 parts per million (ppm).
In the early 1990s, when I was involved in studies on the effect of rising carbon dioxide levels on plant growth, it had risen to 350 ppm and our model experiments used 450 ppm as the potential future value.
Last week, the average daily values at Mauna Loa Observatory were all more than 400 ppm.
This is a rise of a third in less than a lifetime and is related to fossil fuel burn as indicated by corresponding changes in the carbon isotope ratios.
The six years with the highest global surface temperatures since 1880 are between 1998 and 2015, with 2015 set to be the highest.
In the light of this data, the replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energy from all sources and the development of carbon capture must be the rational environmental, ethical and ultimately economic way forward.
Dr Charlie Scrimgeour. Roundyhill, By Forfar.
Consumerism threatens Earth
Sir, – Anyone who has watched a flight-tracker on their computer must be wondering at the enormous volume of CO2 and oil-based pollutants being forced into the upper atmosphere by the thousands of aircraft criss-crossing the planet.
It seems that there is a lot of cherry-picking going on by media and certain political factions who have their own particular agendas.
While it appears that global warming is taking place, mankind’s attempts to reverse the situation are cosmetic at best.
Population increase together with an ever- greater demand for food, power and luxury goods are speeding up warming.
The only way out of this potentially catastrophic state of affairs is for enlightened governments to bring about a global slowdown of rampant consumerism.
Kenneth Miln. 22 Fothringham Drive, Monifieth.
Expect fudge at Paris talks
Sir, – Scotland’s Climate March, which was organised by Stop Climate Chaos Scotland, took place last Sunday in Edinburgh.
What will be achieved other than the feel-good factor and additional CO2 emissions?
Al Gore, in his scaremongering film, An Inconvenient Truth, warned that cuddly polar bears would become extinct and sea levels would rise 20 feet in the near future. Well the polar bear population is thriving and at record numbers.
Scientists from the University of Bristol and Grenoble Alpes University have published a study in the journal Nature saying that previous global-warming predictions of the risk of rising sea levels around the world have been exaggerated.
The team of British and French scientists said that the collapse of an ice sheet in the Antarctic is likely to raise sea levels by only 10 cm by 2100, describing previous apocalyptic predictions as “implausible”.
They said that earlier reports were wrong because they were based on simpler computer models which contained many uncertainties.
The whole global-warming theory was based on dodgy computer predictions.
The Paris conference will present a face-saving agreement which is sufficiently vague and noncommittal for all countries to claim victory.
Clark Cross. 138 Springfield Road, Linlithgow.
Few ideas from Mr Salmond
Sir, – A curious position from your columnist, former First Minister Alex Salmond (November 30).
He appears to aprove of the nuclear bombing of Japan despite his stance against Trident.
Mr Salmond sets out in detail where the judgment of Tony Blair, President Obama and David Cameron has been found wanting.
In a full-page article, Mr Salmond tells us where every other politician has gone wrong but offers not a single suggested solution.
Robert Stark. Mill Street, Tillicoultry.