SO we have been living in a golden age of cheap air travel ("Ryanair in profit but ‘golden age of cheap air travel over’", The Herald, July 26). It would be interesting to see how future generations view this period of profligacy.

As they swelter on a planet with frequent wildfires, heat-related deaths, food shortages and the other likely consequences of human-induced climate change, accelerated by unrestricted air travel, they may be more inclined to view this as a dark age of ignorance and short-termist stupidity.

Dr RM Morris, Ellon.

THE ELECTRICITY SMOKESCREEN

I WISH to talk about gas and wind. This is not a gastric issue, though – OVO (formerly SSE) customers, who have been informed their electricity is 100 per cent green, will be interested to know that today (July 27) it is 75% powered by gas. South Scotland is only 34% gas thanks to Torness’s nuclear contribution and 15% import from England, albeit of uncertain green provenance. Today wind is contributing 1% of UK demand.

The marketing of electricity shares the same Trumpian "alternative facts" as our erstwhile Prime Minister.

Norman McNab, Killearn.

FOSSIL FUELS ARE WONDERFUL

WILLIAM Thomson (Letters, July 25) says he is "incandescent" about climate change and rails against fossil fuels, which he says are responsible for "the planet "burning up". No, Mr Thomson, heathland or forest fires are mostly caused by carelessness or arson.

Fossil fuels are not a "drug" as Mr Thomson says but the most wonderful treasure the human species has discovered. Coal generates vast amounts of electricity and is essential to the manufacture of steel, which builds the ships which are essential to global trade. Oil is the feedstock for plastics in a huge range of products from wind turbine nacelles, mobile phones, computers, and cars to window frames and doors. The diesel engine powers the world, and diesel draglines mine copper, lithium, and iron ore. Gas is the mainstay of UK energy supply.

When the last deep mine in Britain, Kellingley Colliery, was closed its general manager warned that we would rue the day we closed down reliable, British coal-powered electricity generation. That day is coming closer. National Grid will shortly release its annual winter forecast three months early and is expected to warn of shortage of supply. Energy consultancy EnAppSys warns that extreme gas curtailments across Europe could lead to blackouts in the UK. Our Government has instructed our three remaining coal-fired power stations to halt their closure and ramp up production this winter, while the Rough Gas Storage facility 18 miles off the Yorkshire coast, foolishly closed in 2017, is to be brought back into use.

What is required is to start hydraulic fracking for British gas, open new clean coal power stations using British coal, and remind ourselves that Professor Ian Pilmer's 25-year bet to any academic who can prove that anthropogenic global warming exists, still stands unchallenged.

William Loneskie, Lauder.

THOSE WHITE LINES SAVE MANY LIVES

IAN McNair (Letters, July 26) criticises his local council for placing restricting yellow lines, and white lines everywhere. Without going into the situation of his village, can I tell everybody that properly-located white lining is one of the most effective and significant aids to traffic safety.

Many years ago I was asked to join the then Renfrew County Roads Department to reduce recorded accidents. I was the second engineer in the UK to try this when there were only limited (usually American) facts about effective solutions. It was also shortly after the time when all our regulations about road signs changed to the current pattern, now widely copied in many countries

There was no UK knowledge beyond guidance from the former Transport and Road Research Laboratory, so I had to make it up and see what worked.

After some trials of road marking options, one of the first roads "treated" was the Eaglesham Moor road, south of Glasgow where there was a pattern of single-vehicle accidents (drinkers?). White edge lines, maybe a Scotland first, were laid and there was an immediate change, but maybe not statistically significant; however, when laid widely on many of the county`s rural roads the change was definitely significant. Along with other tested changes such as lane guidance in towns for example, recorded accidents dropped from more than 1,500 per year to under 1,000 over six years whilst traffic flows rose by 20%.

Thus carriageway markings sympathetically used have a huge effect on road safety, unlike resurfacing, quite a contradiction perhaps. A resurfaced road on the same alignment leads to increased traffic speeds and thus more or at least more serious accidents. Why? When a road is in a poor condition, drivers naturally pay more attention to the carriageway, their thoughts are less likely to wander, so slower drivers with attention to the road are safer,

This is not a justification to ignore potholes or poor road maintenance, this can cause other types of accidents, but just to point out that road safety engineering has investigated many aspects of road conditions with some surprising actual results as to how you reduce road accidents.

John Taylor, Dunlop.

HITTING THE LOW NOTES

I MUST say I agree with the various readers who are rightly angered at what can only be called "rip-off" pricing for the forthcoming Bruce Springsteen concerts (Letters, July 25 & 27), so my thoughts turned to an advert which is sometimes reproduced in the Times Past section of your sister paper the Glasgow Times.

The advert is for the much-missed Glasgow venue the Apollo. It lists three upcoming gigs featuring The Temptations, Bruce Springsteen and Johnny Cash; prices for all three start at £1, with the top price being £3.

I'm not sure of the year, but those were the days.

Billy Gold Forge, Glasgow.

MY WORD

I AM pleased that Maureen McGarry-O’Hanlon (Letters, July 27) enjoyed tarradiddle’s rare wee outing in my letter of the previous day.

In truth it was a toss-up between it and “fiddle-daddle”; but be assured “humbuggery” was never a contender.

R Russel Smith, Largs.