In context

Alan Thomson (Letters, 22 April) says I have failed to contextualise comments I made regarding energy cost statements made by Ian Moir. I would like the opportunity to explain.

It is actually very easy to understand, because the comments were direct quotes on this issue made by Mr Moir in letters to The Scotsman. What is apparent, in referring to specific elements of the issue, is that Mr Moir significantly varies his calculations of cost effects and contradicts himself on a regular basis.

It’s interesting Mr Thomson feels he has to use emotive terms to augment his argument by characterising neutral comments as “denigration”. It’s also instructive that he feels compelled to defend Mr Moir and I wonder if this is because the comments I listed cannot be disputed by Mr Moir as they are all a matter of public record, having appeared in The Scotsman.

It is inaccurate to say that my purpose is purely to discredit Mr Moir’s figures, but on a topic of considerable importance to Scotland, I think we

are entitled to sift the facts from fantasy.

In this context, it’s instructive that nobody who follows Mr Moir’s line can explain why decarbonisation of heating for the entire UK will cost the infinitely more manageable amount of between £100 to £300 per household by 2050.

GILL TURNER Derby Street, Edinburgh

It’s almost half a century since the first Earth Day, the globally-coordinated protest movement which every spring predicts fresh tippingpoints for the survival of planet Earth. Yet, for scientists like me, it’s a day of reassurance since none of these doomster predictions has ever come true – whether its explosive population growth, starvation, or the imminent end of natural resources.

We’ll probably move on from fossil fuel this century as a result of human ingenuity – until then fracking has allowed the US to clean up its act and become the world’s largest oil producer. Sadly, millions have been fooled by Rachel Carson, Paul Ehrlich, Al Gore et al who have slowed development in the Third World while increasing fuel poverty and unemployment in the First.

(REV DR) JOHN CAMERON,

Howard Place, St Andrews