Action on ozone layer shows that governments can tackle warming emergency
Readers might feel, quite reasonably given the evidence, a wee bit depressed and hope less about the state of the world’ s ecology and the damage we’re doing currently to our environment.
It is worth remembering the one success that reminds us that we humans can and must do some things to stop this disaster that is so obviously an emergency.
When the Montreal proto - col, in 1987, banned the manmade chemicals responsible for depleting the ozone layer it showed that emergency action internationally by governments was possible. While the damage has not been reversed, the ozone layer has started to thicken and the hole over the Antarctic to close.
We have to do so much more than this by supporting and encouraging movements like Extinction Rebellion, as well as telling our governments to do much more with our taxes and resources in the face of this emergency.
Ever y paper and our media everyday should publicise what really needs to be done and what is actually being done to save our environment, rather than bleating on about how to make more profits.
Perhaps our elected socalled politicians should listen to our scientists. We need the political will to act.
NORMAN LOCKHART Waverly Road, Innerleithen
Dr Richard Dixon( Inside Environment ,6 August) is selective in his list of things that have got better in the last 25 years.
He doesn’ t mention the closure of our deep coal mines (which produced methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas ), or the gene rati on of lots of electricity by our nuclear power stations, which don’t give off carbon dioxide. And we no longer get smogs, like the one that killed 4,000 people over four days in London in 1952.
As for the rate of extinction of species accelerating, that is not my experience as a microbiologist and entomologist. Paradoxically, the species that we would like to see extinct are doing well.
Aedes aegypti, the mosquito that transmits Zika virus (and yellow fever), has returned to Brazil after being eradicated by insecticides in the 1950s, and is currently thriving, and, in Scotland, ticks that spread Lyme disease seem to be busy. HUGH PENNINGTON Carlton Place, Aberdeen Whisky producer Glen mor angie is to cut carbon emissions by replacing heavy fuel oil with North Sea gas to provide the power needed for distillation (your report, 1 August).
This is a good idea, so why has the Scottish government banned fracking – which could provide secure and cheaper gas supplies, reduce emissions and provide employment opportunities–and also, explain why they will ban gas for cooking and heating in the not so far off future.
Before the anti-fracking brigade complain, it should be pointed out that Friends of the Earth (FOE) made allegations in a leaflet campaign that the water used in fracking contained a toxic cocktail of chemicals which could end up in drinking water, that fracking chemicals could cause cancer, affect skin, eyes, respiratory systems, nervous, immune and cardiovascular systems.
Despite being asked by the Advertising Standards Authority( AS A ), F oE were unable to substantiate any of these claims. ASA warned FOE never to repeat such claims or face court proceedings. FOE have been strangely silent.
CLARK CROSS Springfield Road, Linlithgow