Climate change
I find Prof Jack W Ponton’s letter of 10 May singularly depressing. He seems to imply that because Europe/the United Kingdom/scotland contributes relatively little in global terms to climate change we should continue on our merry way, enjoying the fruits of humanity’s plundering of the Earth’s natural resources, polluting the seas and devastating the ecosystems on which all life depends.
However, I cannot believe that he can possibly be indifferent to the consequences of climate change being experienced by already seriously disadvantaged populations in other parts of the world.
Small though our contribution, in environmental terms, may be to that suffering, surely he should not be arguing that we refuse to accept responsibility for even that share.
We must believe that by way of example and by participating in the search for economic, political, technical and, dare I say moral, solutions, we as individuals and as small nations can have a part to play in minimising the already present suffering and that yet to come.
History has shown that even those with little influence and wealth can make, against the odds, big differences in overcoming, one by one, the challenges that get in the way of our becoming a less self-centred, ruthlessly materialistic species.
Even Scotland as part of an enlightened Europe and
possibly an enlightened UK can have a role to play. I shall undoubtedly be scorned by the usual suspects for displaying an unrealistic degree of idealism. So be it.
JOHN MILNE Ardgowan Drive, Uddingston
Professor P on ton’ s letter struck the nail very accurately on the head!
The temperature rise of 0.0007420 C, from which Scotland can rescue the world by total de carbonisation, may just be measurable as 0.00070 C, with the very careful use of platinum resistance thermometers!
A point usually missed or suppressed concerning carbon dioxide is that additions of the gas to our atmosphere are decreasingly effective in raising the temperature, rather like painting a black wall with white paint. The first coat covers a lot, the second covers some of the rest. The next coats of paint only cover what traces of black are left.
It is the way nature arranges things. But politicians are very poor scientists as a rule and believe the stories of catastrophic climate changes so strongly promoted by those businesses profit from “renewable energy ”. It’s the way the world is.
RICHARD PHILLIPS
Newbury, Berkshire