We should support these climate strikers

Regarding your article on the young climate strikers ("Why Edinburgh Council will never stop of striking for the climate", Herald on Sunday, August 18), I applaud the action of our young people who plan a campaign of weekly school strikes to highlight the threat to their future posed by climate change. This is in response to the failure of those of us of an older generation to take adequate measures to deal with the crisis which already affects so many communities worldwide.

Young people have a limited range of options available to them. We need to respect their choice of strike action as the right action for them. Many may question the effectiveness of their actions, but how does one measure the effectiveness of any of our actions in the public sphere?

We need to recognise their action for what it is – a wake-up call to the rest of us to get serious about what we need to do to tackle climate change: eat less meat, use public transport, or cycle or walk instead of using the car, cut down on flying, put pressure on our politicians to end our dependency on fossil fuels, encourage energy-saving through more stringent housing regulations, curbing pollution, recycling.

How we act will be crucial in determining the effectiveness of the young people’s campaign.

Michael Martin.

Glasgow

• In Ron McKay's Diary item about plastic bottles (Herald on Sunday, August 18, he says "Why am I and other council taxpayers stumping up for this when it's not us that created the problem?"

I don't see how it's NOT Ron McKay and all other consumers that created the problem. Each one of you bought something in a plastic bottle instead of a glass bottle. The glass bottle can be washed and reused.

For 21 years I have been taking the empty bottles that had contained cleaning products back to the shop to be refilled so for 21 years I have not put a plastic bottle in a landfill. This same action should have been done by all consumers, after all this waste problem has been widely publicised in newspapers for the last 10 years. It has been known by members of all environmental protection groups like Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, RSPB, etc for 50 years.

So Mr McKay, stop blaming councils, governments, and everybody else for YOUR waste, and start taking responsibility for it YOURSELF.

Margaret Forbes

Kilmacolm

• I despair of politicians with their knee-jerk reactions. "Oh, electric vehicles," they said, "what a great idea to reduce our emissions, so let's ban the purchase of petrol/diesel vehicles after 2040." The Scottish Government always has to better the UK Government, so it gleefully said 2032. No idea of what is going to replace the 57.95p fuel duty plus VAT of 11.59p = 69.54p on EVERY litre of fuel. The fuel duty alone gives £28 billion every year to the exchequer plus another £5.6 billion in VAT.

The Office for Budget Responsibility predicts that fuel tax revenues will have declined by a fifth by 2020/21 and will decrease every year as the number of EVs increase. The government has no plans on this serious decline in revenue. Meanwhile the rest of the world drives 1.2 billion petrol/diesel vehicles.

Clark Cross

Linlithgow

Community ownership: Let's not jump to criticism

Before criticising the unfortunate fate of the Rhubodach Forest (Herald on Sunday, August 18) community buyout on Bute and the possible waste of government funds, perhaps we should ask two things:

a) What percentage of community buyouts actually fail, and

b) How much the government has given to large-scale landowners over the years in terms of grants and subsidies?

Let’s not be too hasty in ditching a scheme which, it appears, has already resulted in 3% of land in Scotland now being in the possession of local communities. Something to be proud of, I would have thought.

John Palfreyman

Coupar Angus

• Re your article on Rhubodach Forest, I would like to make it very clear that the forest remains open, available to all without restriction. Let me be clear – a community forest like ours has many uses, and it remains in use. John Reid

Chairman and Trustee

Bute Community Land Company

Decisive action needed to end Brexit nightmare

Is there any vast difference between May’s threadbare “deal” and Johnson’s leap into the economic void? In the long term either will inflict the death of a thousand cuts. We will get worse than what we have, and we will abandon the organisation that has by degrees extended the blessings of peace to a war-wrecked continent.

All this has been argued back and fore. Scotland and London are still a solid two-to-one to stay, much of provincial England avid to leave, Wales and Ulster ambivalent. The UK as a whole is split down the middle. Despite a nervous shuffle towards staying, not much has changed. The Leavers’ dirty tricks department is shouting betrayal and a contest between People and Parliament. Were the UK Parliament to revoke Article 50 tomorrow, then we will have the extreme Leavers’ unfulfilled fantasies inflicted on us as the plagues of Egypt for ever and a day. Only a very decisive referendum vote to stay would stop that. But no referendum is on offer and if it were, until the law is changed the result would be open to a re-run of the deceit and manipulation we had last time.

Brexit now has to be tested to destruction. Nothing else will settle the hash. The economic acid rain will fall on the just as on the unjust. Maybe things will turn out different – one has to allow for people’s ability to adapt when cornered, but I am not optimistic. The very real risk is that if and when the UK (if that still includes Scotland) applies to rejoin the EU, we will be turned away.

Johnson’s feet on his host Macron’s table was maybe a joke, but symbolic of a graceless and foolish contempt that the Continentals will not forget.

Gavin Sprott

Edinburgh

•I must take issue with Iain Macwhirter’s assertion that “Johnson has the civil service on side and the diplomatic corps” (Voices, August 18). I can’t speak for the civil service, although I see no reason why its members should fall in as one behind the PM, but as a member of HM Diplomatic Service for 39 years, it was my experience that advice and analysis was impartial whatever the political complexion of the government of the time.

And I remember being told by the Crown Prince of a Gulf state that one of his predecessors, on being told that the British political adviser was leaving at the end of his tour of duty, asked that the adviser be replaced by someone with one arm. When asked why, he said he was fed up with being told, “On the one hand…..and on the other hand.….”.

Name and address supplied

Face the truth, Reverend

I have never read so much nonsense as that in Rev Dr John Cameron's letter on facial recognition (Letters, August 18). The reason sensible, thinking, people know this is a bad idea is because in countries where it is in operation the citizens are identified, arrested, imprisoned, tortured ... and if they are lucky they are not killed.

The British government is descending into such a state of chaos that it could not be trusted to operate a menodge, never mind a facial recognition system. This is what is going on in China at the moment with Uigurs, who are controlled with technology including facial recognition.

If Rev Cameron thinks its such a good idea why doesn't he go to live in a state where it operates?

Margaret Forbes

Kilmacolm

A gift of independence

Let me ask, please, a serious question. In the present febrile political atmosphere, most would accept that anything can happen.

So, if the no-deal, hard-line Brexiteers offered the SNP a chance to break up the UK as part of an arrangement to give the Leavers a free hand in pulling out of the EU, does anyone think for a millisecond that the nationalists would refuse?

It would be no surprise and would follow gigantic U-turns on the monarchy and Nato, but these dramatic about-turns are part of the SNP’s DNA.

Alexander McKay

Edinburgh

• In preparation for the 2014 independence referendum, the Scottish government submitted a leading question to the Electoral Commission that it knew could not be accepted, namely: “Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?”

The SNP got exactly what it wanted when the Commission came back keeping as close as possible to the original but without the obvious leading element, so we had “Should Scotland be an independent country?”. What came with that, of course, was the gift for the independence movement of a positive "Yes" response to build its case on, and better still a ready-made criticism of opponents based on negativity, which to some extent was inherent in their having to argue the case for "No".

It was nothing short of brazen for the Scottish government to try to effectively push through in its Referendums (Scotland) Bill a repeat of the question posed in 2014. This was particularly so, given that the Electoral Commission had meanwhile properly concluded that a question structured to seek the more neutral Remain or Leave response should be used in the 2016 EU referendum. This had been based on further evidence showing it to be the more balanced approach.

Clearly it will be critical, if the circumstances arise where a UK government is minded to agree a second independence referendum, that the terms and conditions of such a vote are very carefully vetted and agreed to ensure the SNP does not seek to weight each element of the process towards favouring its preferred outcome.

Keith Howell

West Linton

Just let the US have Greenland

Donald Trump isn't the first US president to make a bid for Greenland. Andrew Jackson floated the idea in 1831 while Harry Truman offered Denmark $100 million in 1946. The West's strategic defence against expansionist China and Russia make the case for its closer links to North America. In fact it's hard to justify Denmark's need to hang onto the vast island – it's like the UK wanting to "keep" India.

In view of its wealth of natural resources (iron, lead, zinc, diamonds, gold, oil, uranium, etc) it's absurd it still needs subsidies of 70% to survive. Too many of its 55,000 population are addicted to alcohol and it has by far the world's highest suicide rate.

US investment and its can-do spirit will enable it to do what Denmark has signally failed to do: get the people of Greenland up and running.

Rev Dr John Cameron

St Andrews