One glimmer of hope in the series of ongoing horrors in Ukraine is that some good may come of it. When it ends, there may be a realisation on the part of many in the West – most notably Germany – of the truth about energy supplies. They have to accept that the almost total reliance on one source for the still absolutely essential oil and gas needed to keep the people of Europe alive for the foreseeable future is a suicidal path to take. Climate change will have to be tackled but the timescale will have to be drastically altered and taken out of the hands of political activists.
The policy of blind abandonment of nuclear power and the exploration and production of fossil fuels – paramount in Scotland – will have to stop and reverse, at least until new and reliable and, critically, uninterrupted alternative sources of renewable power are available. Boast as you will about one thousand, one million, wind farms, but what good are they when the winds stops or is too strong or blowing in the wrong direction?
It may take the SNP/Green coalition in Scotland longer than most to accept this. They have, once again, up to now got it all wrong.
Alexander McKay, Edinburgh
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