Sir, Mr Smith’s letter in Wednesday’s Courier is an uncritical acceptance of the IPCC climate change report.
The report is a political, not scientific, document.
Fewer than 10% of the scientists who endorse it are climate change scientists.
The rest, from unrelated disciplines, are quite happy to be attached to a lucrative bandwagon: very many have links to “green” pressure groups (the IPCC chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, is a railway engineer, not a scientist).
What the report does not address is the failure of their previous predictions.
In spite of disaster warnings there has been no increase in global temperatures in the past 15 years.
The Arctic ice cap, which in 2007 was predicted to have disappeared by this year, has in fact increased.
The Himalayan glaciers are not on course to have melted by 2035 (or at all).
Tuvalu and the Maldives have seen no increase in sea levels. Most of the “evidence” published by Al Gore has now been shown to be total nonsense.
The Earth is a thermodynamic system: climate will change regardless of man.
The factors leading to change are enormously complex, with carbon dioxide a very minor player.
What is damaging is the plethora of green taxes, incomprehensible energy policies and billions wasted on carbon trading and windmills.
Bill McKenzie. 48 Fintry Place, Broughty Ferry.
People of faith will bring better way of living
Sir, I was delighted to read Neil Barber’s letter printed with mine in connection with the 2011 Census statistics on religious beliefs. (Courier, October 2).
I agree completely with Neil that the church should have no mandate to impose its beliefs in non-denominational schools and have unelected representatives on all Scottish education committees.
Religious education covering a wide range of world faiths should be a subject in the school curriculum, with religious observance being the responsibility of the particular faith in their own building, not in the school.
Also, people of faith should be elected on all committees on merit, that is on the particular skills and experience necessary for the position and not on the basis of their religious beliefs.
The church, in particular, has to discover God anew recognising and accepting that we have no God-given right to special privileges within Scottish society today.
When we do, however, God, in whom I have faith but cannot prove, will enable us to offer Scottish society a way of living which brings hope, peace and fulfilment.
Grahame Lockhart. Myrtle Cottage, 15 Scott Street, Brechin.
Secular activist nonsense
Sir What nonsense from secular activist Neil Barber (“church must accept it has no mandate”).
The Church of Scotland has several hundred thousand members (he has about 30 members apparently) and has been a vital part of Scotland’s culture and life for centuries.
Very few born and bred Scots want to change that I suspect and it is Mr Barber and his tiny coterie of activists , unrepresentative of Scotland and its communities in town and glen, who have absolutely no mandate to be suggesting any changes in the church’s position in national life.
Gus Logan. 2 York Road, North Berwick.
“Tiger” caused great alarm
Sir, I was most interested to read the account of the lion which escaped and caused such alarm in Blairgowrie’s Wellmeadow, in 1905 (Courier October 1).
My granny, who died in 1973, often regaled me with the story of “the tiger” which got loose in Blair when she was young.
Her father, who was the grieve at Blair House, had sent her on an errand into the town when she was pulled into a shop in the Wellmeadow and kept there by the lady shopkeeper, because, as she said, “an escaped tiger had been seen in the Wellmeadow and it wisna safe tae be oot”.
Needless to say, Granny never saw the tiger, but the excitement of that afternoon remained with her all her life.
Helen Lawrenson. 51 Bay Road, Wormit.
Had to reveal parcel contents
Sir, What is this country coming to?
I went to a post office to send a small gift to my daughter and the assistant insisted she had to know what was in the parcel and if I didn’t tell her then it would not be sent.
I felt that surely if I said I was not posting any of the forbidden items on the list she handed me, then that would have been sufficient, but that was not the case.
Is this a new directive from the European Union or is this another infringement of our civil liberties imposed by this nanny state that we seem to live in nowadays?
June Reid. 12 Findhorn Street, Fintry, Dundee.