Green ‘solutions’

Your always interesting columns contain arguments for and against dubious ‘green’ remedies proposed for problems which are based on environmental pollution, itself of quite uncertain importance for us to counter in Scotland.

The ‘solutions’ in question are respectively wind turbines for man-made climate change and electrically-powered motor cars for poor air quality, thought to shorten lifespans, particularly of people at risk of cardiorespiratory diseases.

These environmental scares have elicited well-meant but very costly overreactions from the authorities which often have combined nearhysteria and lack of practical thinking.

It is now abundantly clear that wind-powered electricity generation has done vast harm to Scotland’s finances and fabric, while achieving nothing very useful, except money for its beneficiaries.

As for the ‘public health emergency’ from urban traffic air pollution, allegedly costing some 40,000 UK lives yearly, researchers predicted survival shortened by only a week or three. The world’s trade, carried by air, sea and lorries, cannot use electric vehicles.

One is reminded of the late US President, Ronald Regan’s, advice for over-enthusiastic and hyper-active politicians: “Don’t just do something, stand there”!

DR CHARLES WARDROP, Viewlands Road West, Perth