YOUR VIEWS: Get Swiss advice to make the Cairngorm funicular work
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From reading the Strathy’s reports on the delays in restoring the funicular at Cairngorm Mountain, I am again reminded of the parallel Swiss story might which might help those in charge here.
The very similar mountain railway between Lauterbruennen and Gruetschalp developed very similar faults a few years ago.
The Swiss railway civil and railway engineers restored that vital inter-village rail connection with a cable car system. Although not so pretty as the railway, it was in place and working within five or six months. I get the impression from your news articles that a combination of financial wrangling and now, perhaps, uncertainties in organisation, has further delayed restoration of the funicular.
No date for the mountain railway work’s completion is apparently yet fixed. As a lover of and frequent visitor to Strathy territory, may I suggest an idea which might get the project’s essential repair work done soon?
Why not take Swiss advice as to the work necessary to correct the remaining and persisting problems if that has not already been sought.
Charles Wardrop
Viewlands Rd West
Perth.
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A campaign of misinformation on global scale
Charles Wardrop (Letters, 21st December) again misinforms your readers with his reference to “Our various differences of scientific opinion [about] adverse climate changes”.
That is not what has occurred. Instead, the tedious series of letters from Mr Wardrop that the Strathy has printed over the last many months consisted largely of falsehoods with no scientific basis whatsoever. And those falsehoods were countered not by ‘opinion’ but by scientific evidence and data.
For example, Mr Wardrop (22nd June) claimed, ‘only about 3.8 per cent of the total atmospheric CO2 is man-made’, when the correct proportion was about 34 per cent.
The scientific evidence for that latter figure, which is entirely uncontroversial, was explained to Mr Wardrop at that time.
Mr Wardrop now apologises for his mistake about the location of a recent talk – a matter of no importance – but has never apologised for any of the misinformation and falsehoods on climate issues that his letters contain. Indeed, he frequently repeats such misinformation at other times and places.
So, no, Mr Wardrop, we are not engaged in a discourse concerning ‘scientific opinion’. Instead, you, Mr Wardrop, are part of a global misinformation campaign supported by fossil fuel companies, which poses an existential threat to human civilisation and life on Earth.
Truth matters. Scientific evidence matters. Integrity matters. And your letters are devoid of all three.
Roy Turnbull
Torniscar
Nethy Bridge.
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‘Cost of Net Zero to the UK will be well in excess of £3 trillion’
I note Dermot Williamson’s insistence that we are “Heading off in the wrong direction yet again on the global emergency” (Strathy, December 14).
Doubtless he was encouraged that 80 per cent of the 60 attendees he addressed in Newtonmore on December 7 on this topic signed up to increase pressure on politicians to tackle global warming.
Like Charles Wardrop whom he criticises, I am a climate realist as opposed to an alarmist and have found that such events are invariably heavily representative of those who share his utopian net zero views.
Ex-PM Theresa May whose parting legacy to the nation in 2019 was to commit to net zero by 2050 declared that “The economic benefits of net zero far outstrip the investment required”.
Closer examination of this as well as some of Mr Williamson’s pronouncements reveal many discrepancies. His statement that net zero can be achieved at a cost of £3 billion is woefully inaccurate.
Taking into full account the costs of decarbonising our electricity system, retrofitting the housing stock with insulation and air source heat pumps as well as the financial implications for transport and industry, the Global Warming Policy Foundation estimates a cost well in excess of £3 trillion.
This is a figure endorsed by Professor Michael Kelly, former chief scientist at the Department of Communities and Local Government who calculates that the cost per household could range between £70,000 and £135,000 depending on possible cost reductions.
Even the the Climate Change Committee, in an obscure footnote concedes that some of the costs of achieving net zero are ‘prohibitively high’. It’s time that deliberately alarming pronouncements that ‘earth is boiling’ as temperature records are ‘shattered’ should be tempered with a note of reality.
While there is is denying that there has been a slight, if erratic warming trend, a number of facts are persistently overlooked and under reported.
Not only are we are still transitioning out of an Ice Age but also temperature data only began to be recorded at a few locations some 170 years ago while the satellite era is a mere 60 years old.
Since then, in tandem with massive population growth, urban development where a majority of weather stations are located, has expanded enormously and subsequently given rise to the Urban Heat Island Effect where radiated heat distorts temperature readings.
The frequent ‘unprecedented’ temperature and extreme weather statements should be taken with more than a pinch of salt.
While the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has indeed increased by 139 parts per million since pre industrial times, it is rarely reported that vital though it is for life, it comprises just 0.04 per cent of all atmospheric gases to which human activities contribute four per cent.
The remaining 96 per cent emanates from natural sources. In addition, ice core data reveals that there is no correlation between temperature rise and elevated CO2.
Are we to seriously believe that this is the primary causal factor that influences our climate that has changed for countless millennia due to infinitely more complex and chaotic causal factors such as cosmic events, our sun, clouds and ocean currents.
Neil J Bryce.
Gateshaw
Kelso.
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Help to feed and educate children
I feel incredibly fortunate to start 2024 filled with optimism for the future.
Sadly, not everyone can start the year with the same hope. Millions of children across the world, often impacted by civil war, natural disasters or drought, won’t even know where their next meal is coming from. Many years ago, I started giving my support to Mary’s Meals, the international school feeding charity which does incredible work in 18 of the world’s poorest countries by encouraging children into the classroom with the promise of a daily school meal.
Mary’s Meals provide little ones with energy, education and a ladder out of poverty, but also gives them something we often take for granted: hope for a brighter future.
I decided to set up a regular donation to the charity because I wanted to know that each month, I was helping to feed another child at school. The certainty of a regular gift enables Mary’s Meals to keep the promise to the 2.4 million children they feed every school day, while they strive to reach millions more who remain hungry.
And as your readers begin to take on their New Year’s resolutions, I’d ask them to consider adding another very important one to their list: to give the gift of hope in 2024. A gift of any size makes a huge difference – it costs just 10p to provide a nutritious meal for a hungry child.
If you set up a regular gift to Mary’s Meals before 22 January 2024, then your first two donations will be doubled as part of the charity’s Double The Love appeal.
Visit marysmeals.org.uk for more information.
Ruth Mitchell
Mary’s Meals supporter.
