We need heroes not conspiracy theorists

I WROTE a letter on fact checking and got a blast from regular writer John Gray. He called me a gullible “warmist” and mocked me by explaining how the UN, Governments and almost all scientists are in a massive conspiracy against the rest of us.

My first reaction was to write back calling him a bit of a twit. His name was familiar and local press websites reminded me he is an early retiree and carer for his wife (by coincidence so am I). We have both also suffered bad treatment by someone in authority.

He fought a valiant and victorious campaign last year for his community against shabby treatment by a business doing work for local authority. (Unless there are two John Grays in Oxclose of course.)

I like this guy. He’s a local hero. But he’s just taken his scepticism, that had served him well, too far in thinking that almost everyone in authority is out to get him.

Living in such a conspiracy theory world must be a terrible and frightening thing but hopefully I can help him. First with a big virtual hug and secondly by pointing him in the direction of the stress-reducing habit of only holding opinions for which you have strong supporting facts.

This can work wonders for mental health. John is almost there, he investigated and partly explained the silting up of Bangladeshi rivers which run off from the Himalayas. John just needed to read on a little to see that increased extreme weather events from global warming are making the flooding worse.

John, the UN, Governments worldwide and science are not out to get you. That would be a horrible situation. You might feel so powerless that you had to resort to writing insulting letters to total strangers in your local paper.

The good news is that we live in a world where we have solutions to global warming. Why not just read on a bit more and find a fantastic cause to fight for? We need local heroes like you.