Climate row
Dr Stephen Moreton, living in Cheshire, is apparently an exiled Scot with a large green chip on his shoulder and a hankering for Independence and rejoining the EU (Letters, 24 February). He objected to my saying that climate change is “in the distant future”. He then says renewables are cheaper (they are not) and that the UK will achieve energy independence, which it never will. If the danger of a changing climate is here now can he suggest how the UK, with 1 per cent of global emissions, can save the planet when the majority of countries are “phasing up” their usage of fossil fuels and certainly not “phasing out” or even “phasing down”?
I am sure Dr Moreton can calculate the hundreds of thousands of tons of greenhouse gases created by wars in the manufacture of weapons and rebuilding the shattered infrastructure.
On receiving his calculations everyone could then decide whether eating less meat, buying a heat pump, shutting off the gas supply, enduring the pain of public transport, no longer taking foreign holidays and remortgaging their homes to buy an electric car will make any difference to global temperatures.
Clark Cross, Linlithgow, West Lothian
Blown it
This past weekend saw some inconvenient truths for those who promote wind power. At 11.35pm on Saturday night UK windfarms spread across both land and sea with a theoretical capacity of 23,076 MW (megawatts) were generating a miniscule 160 MW as calm weather engulfed the country and solar power was at zero. In total, wind power was at less than 1 per cent of capacity for 4 hours and less than 10 per cent for 36 hours.
One hundred per cent clean energy by 2050? That leaves plenty of time to redefine “clean” or “energy” or both.
Geoff Moore, Alness, Highland
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