Sir, – Michael Alexander’s article on the Science of Climate Change (The Courier, October 29) was a refreshingly sane view of a topic that too often breeds hysteria.
If you take the long view, it’s clear that we’re not going to destroy the planet.
It’s big enough to take care of itself.
As far as we can tell, the Earth has enjoyed greenhouse periods, when there was no permanent ice anywhere, and colder periods, such as we’re in now and have been for some millions of years.
But, overall, the greenhouse periods are thought to account for over 80% of history.
Life evolved and flourished when temperatures were much higher than today (and radioactivity too).
It’ll cope with anything we throw at it.
We’ve moved from an atmosphere of 280 parts CO2 and 999,720 parts other stuff to a mix of 410/999,590.
Given that CO2 is essential to life, life is doing surprisingly well on very little.
What is at risk is the thin veneer of human civilisation with which we’ve coated the planet. Because it’s thin, it’s vulnerable. Because it’s new, its durability is yet to be fully tested.
That said, we should use the Earth’s resources carefully and cleverly. We shouldn’t burn hydrocarbons when we could use them to make stuff but neither should we burn biomass.
The idea that we can reduce CO2 by building power stations that burn mostly carbon Is plain daft. Nor should we concentrate on intermittent power sources till we’ve cracked the storage question.
Finally, we should be sceptical of scientific consensus, particularly when some of the consensual scientists depend on following the herd for their livelihood. Simply being a “scientist” doesn’t make someone infallible. At one point, the scientific community believed in phlogiston. That didn’t make it true.
Dave Dempsey.
7 Carlingnose Park,
North Queenferry.
Alarmists proved wrong?
Sir, – There is no “climate emergency” or “climate breakdown”.
The Earth’s climate has always been changing and will continue to change long after humanity has disappeared from the planet.
The predictions of the alarmists have been proved wrong so often that sensible people are tiring of them.
In March 2009 Prince Charles said “we have less than 100 months to alter our behaviour before we risk catastrophic climate change”.
In 1989 the UN caused fear by stating that “entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by 2000”.
In 2006 Al Gore warned “we have less than 10 years to make dramatic changes in our global warming pollution”.
Completely decarbonising our economy as Extinction Rebellion and their fellow travellers want would reduce it to medieval levels.
Industry cannot function without the hard working diesel engine – from compressors to container ships. Every wind machine requires large amounts of gearbox oil. Moreover, there are 649,000 households in Scotland in fuel poverty including nearly 40% of rural households.
Replacing gas and oil heating with electricity would increase fuel poverty four-fold.
Scotland, with 0.13% of global emissions, should welcome climate change not oppose it, Canute-like.
If you were to ask the Scottish electorate if they would like warmer summers and milder winters I suspect most would answer in the affirmative.
If you were to ask them if they would be prepared to pay thousands of pounds more to “prevent climate change” I suspect the answer would be hugely negative.
William Loneskie.
9 Justice Park,
Lauder.
‘Use your vote wisely’
Sir,- So we are going to be asked to vote in a general election.
How many votes will it take this time for a candidate to be declared the winner?
If the result does not suit the big four parties will they want a re-run?
We will be asked to vote for two parties who have led the decline in our democracy?
One led by a man who it is alleged to have supported the IRA.
Then there is the other party who looks after it’s own who believes like the other in the class system and tax breaks for the well heeled and tax loopholes.
Only today it was announced that a Labour MP will give up his seat to take a seat in the Lords.
The Lords it seems is a reward from the establishment to the traitors of the working people who lied when they stood as socialist MPs for years .
Is there any real socialist in the Labour Party who would refuse this nice little earner, a title?
It is time we were asked in a referendum ‘Do we need a House of Lords?’
Do we need the people to elect a political head of state who would form a government?
Do we need a democracy where the peoples votes count?
Do we need a democracy where no new laws can be passed before the people have a vote on it?
Will our new government who ever they are listen to the people or will it be more of the same, university clones calling all the shots and lying to us and not for the first time? Use your three seconds of political power wisely.
John G Phimister.
63 St Clair St,
Kirkcaldy.
Out of the frying pan into the fire?
Sir, – Hopefully the SNP’s vision of an independent Scotland must surely be one in which the people of Scotland would become more prosperous.
But alas it seems that the SNP also wishes Scotland to become a fully-fledged member of the EU. Has the cost of such a move been fully investigated?
There must be quite a number of contradictions in such a vision. One of the main reasons for the UK wishing to leave the EU is that there is far too much bureaucracy, which has had a detrimental effect on the ability to trade satisfactorily on a global basis.
Also the laws created by the European Union take precedence over these of the member states, which has proved to be a great disadvantage. And then of course there is the high cost of membership.
And should it ever reach the stage where the UK of Great Britain and Northern Ireland ceases to exist as a political and economic entity, how will the SNP minority administration manage to resolve the Scottish GERS deficit?
The amount raised in tax revenues within the Scottish Economic Area of the UK amounts to circa £62.7 billion, but the total public spending was £73.3 billion according to the official latest figures – a deficit of £10.6 billion.
Fortunately Scotland, as a member state of the UK, benefits from what is known as the Barnett Formula, and any such deficits are balanced by the treasury within the government at Westminster.
But of course this would no longer apply if the SNP did ever get a majority of votes to legally seek independence from the UK. However we are all aware the results in the 2014 referendum were very much in favour of ‘Better Together’. So has anything really changed? Indeed a recent Survation Poll indicates that only 40% of the electorate back independence.
Robert I G Scott.
Northfield,
Ceres.
