A letter in the Scotsman today in response to Aileen’s yesterday on sham polls.
Poll position
Poll trickery indeed (Letters, 8 August). Well said to Aileen Jackson, particularly her last point. Apart from the footling numbers of people actually asked in such surveys, which are then headlined and reported as supposedly an accurate reflection of the whole population’s opinion, the questions very often cannot be answered with a simple “yes” or “no”. Nuance and context can be not only relevant but critical.
Having said that, in my 65 years of deemed adulthood (i.e. deemed nowadays by so-called “progressives”, actually about 59) I have never been asked my opinion in any such survey, and find it rather sad when election results turn out to be very close to the latest opinion or exit polls.
Without going as far as giving a false reply, why do more of us not just say “it’s none of your business”? And if we do, how is that recorded?
John Birkett, St Andrews, Fife
Unsightly pylons
Those in favour of a windfarm planning application because of the bribe of a community fund, should note that in addition to the windmills – unsightly in themselves – there will be associated pylons and overhead cables to take the windfarm output to the grid.
Windfarm developers never mention this in their planning applications.
Highland region residents are presently discovering this to their alarm, as pylons and cables impinge upon dwellings and tourist attractions.
The magnetic fields these power lines create, are also considered by some to be a health risk to humans and animals.
Malcolm Parkin, Kinnesswood, Perth & Kinross
Climate alarmism
Another day, another outrage by climate cult zealots. Apart from the harm these attention-seeking idiots do to ordinary people, and to extraordinary people in sport and in the high offices of state, commerce, and industry going about their lives, they are completely wrong in their assertion that civilisation is doomed unless fossil fuels are scrapped. The same fossil fuels are the things which give us steel, concrete, energy, plastics, power, manufacturing, hospital equipment, and heat and light.
According to the former Portuguese politician and now UN boss Antonio Guterres, we are “in a world of global boiling”. No we aren’t. We are in a world of climate alarmism. Global temperature has only increased by one degree centigrade since 1900, and the number of weather-related deaths since that year has plummeted. That the climate is very slowly warming should be celebrated here in Scotland, not portrayed as some doomsday event.
William Loneskie, Lauder, Scottish Borders
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