I READ with interest the response on these pages last week to the Agenda contribution from the Rt Rev Susan Brown, Moderator of the General Assembly (“Why climate change is an issue the Kirk has to tackle", The Herald, August 27). Ian Moir (Letters, August 31) pointed out in reply that the Kirk’s policy of moving to a zero-emissions Scotland would result in a tripling of domestic energy bills.
It is, of course, now more than two years since Scottish politicians missed their legally binding duty of ending fuel poverty. As autumn approaches, the reality is that, even without new attempts to rip out our gas boilers, more and more Scots are going to be choosing between heating and eating. No one denies the importance of responding seriously and soberly to the climate challenge with credible solutions but whether this particular policy proves to be either popular or effective will be a matter for government ministers rather than the Kirk.
It is unlikely to be a winner with gas workers, 5,000 of whom working for British Gas right now are face the pressing issue of redundancy. But, it will have been music to the ears of the big energy companies who are happy to pocket the renewables subsidies that inevitably follow when energy policy is driven by the well-meaning rather than the well informed.
Hopefully, if we are to avoid our homes becoming as cold as a draughty pew, then the rush to virtue-signal on energy policy will be resisted by the Scottish Government.
Gary Smith,
GMB Scotland Secretary,
Fountain House, 1/3 Woodside Crescent, Charing Cross, Glasgow.
JOHN Milne (Letters, August 29) is certain that Brexit, of any degree of completeness, will have catastrophic effects on the UK, and will lead to a lessening of efforts to tackle its anthropogenic basis, presumably from consequential increased release of greenhouse gases.
He should be ready to answer, say, three questions so as to confirm his assertions:
First, how can he reconcile the last two decades' pause in global warming despite increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations?
Secondly, he must have noted that the "big emitters," China, India, most of the USA and now Australia, do not subscribe to or are deserting the tenets of the Paris Agreement to curtail release of CO2. The UK's 1.3 per cent (Scotland a tenth of that) proportion of CO2 output cannot contribute significantly to the hypothetical hypercarbia basis of anthropogenic climate changes.
Third, just how can he be certain that Brexit would be catastrophic for us?
Since his assertions, if correct, are very serious, he owes us answers to such questions for them to be seen as justified.
(Dr) Charles Wardrop,
111, Viewlands Road West, Perth.
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