LETTER: Differing views on green issues

There are all sorts of people in this world. For example we have men like David Penney who has campaigned hard and long to try to make our world a safer and cleaner place for future generations. Then you have people like Michael Sutcliff who thinks it is acceptable to try to ridicule and rubbish the efforts and concerns of the likes of David and me. I have never met David Penney but I am very happy to be mentioned in the same article (October 19th), albeit another silly one from Michael Sutcliff.

So Michael doesn’t believe in global warming? Interesting. I wonder which newspaper he reads to help him come to this conclusion?

What about the massive destruction of the Amazon rain forest, and many other rain forests. Does this not have a negative effect on our planet? Also we have millions more people on Earth than we had 100 years ago and this clearly means millions more cars and people jetting all over the world. I suspect Michael doesn’t agree with the idea of a “carbon footprint” and how giving it some consideration might possibly help.

Obviously some people don’t agree with the idea of building large wind turbines and disagree with my support for them. But what is Michael’s suggestion? Burn coal! What happens when we burn all the coal we have left and finally exhaust the oil and gas? Michael accuses David Penney and myself of having a “lack of knowledge” and being members of the “Flat Earth society”. I don’t claim to be anything but an interested and very concerned observer and I try to do as little as possible to damage the environment I live in. David Penney, from what I have read and heard, is well informed and deserves to be listened to.

I do not support windmills because they will be a long term answer to our power needs or even a major provider, but surely they should be part of that answer. In 2009, wind turbines provided just under 2% of the total electricity needs for the whole of the USA. It might not seem much but in my opinion it is a start at least.

Opponents of windmills manage to make fantastic claims of the damage they do to our countryside and health, both physical and mental. The vast majority have been proven wrong and even silly. However Michael has found a new one. He claims these turbines are not only useless, they are the reason we saw a 9% increase in our energy bills last week! Now that claim needs a bit of explanation.

GERARD McCABE

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