Sir, – The current energy crisis, with domestic bills set to rise some 50% in April, will confront British citizens with the stark reality of the choices that have been made on our behalf by the bien pensant of the net-zero persuasion.
Twenty-five retail energy companies have collapsed, another has been nationalised, along with a fertilizer plant (to produce CO2 for fizzy drinks). All will appear on bills and taxes.
We are shipping fracked gas from the US while banning fracking here. We have undermined investment in the North Sea, while allowing Putin to use Nord Stream 2 as a bargaining chip over the future sovereignty of the Ukraine.
We are using public money to import gas to manufacture CO2, while claiming to lead the world on tackling climate change. Of course no one is following.
The ideology of domestic decarbonisation at any price reversed our traditional energy policy whose pragmatism liberalised markets, ending coal’s long domination over natural gas which reduced both the environmental impact and costs.
Choices were made by companies and consumers rather than quangos and doom goblins so that the best and cheapest technology was employed.
We will need gas for 30 to 50 years but have vast reserves in shale beds and the North Sea. There’s no ecological objection or alternatives.
Expensive, insecure renewables mean we cannot produce energy-intensive components for wind turbines, nuclear power, solar panels, electric cars, etc.
Yet scientists questioning our mad dash for net-zero are met with a wall of Stalinist denial.
Dr John Cameron. Howard Place, St Andrews, Fife.
‘Solar gain’ scientist fails to see the irony
Sir, – From June this year conservatories on new-build houses in the UK will be banned unless it can be proved that they will not create “unwanted solar gain” which would increase global temperatures leading, we are monotonously told, to devastating climate change.
This was welcomed by environmental scientist Angela Terry who was interviewed on TV from her home where she was sitting in – guess where? – her conservatory.
She should turn her attention to solar farms in the UK. In America dashboard thermometers go up by 4 degrees celsius when driving through solar farms which are creating “unwanted solar gain”.
Time to scrap all solar farms and thus “save the planet”.
Clark Cross. Springfield Road, Linlithgow.
Negative narrative needs positive spin
Sir, – It is important to consider the mental health of the nation. It’s therefore heart-warming to see well-known people lending their support to help promote the mental welfare of people in all walks of life, especially after the difficulties that many may have experienced while navigating the pandemic.
There is however a fundamental stumbling block for those looking for a helping hand.
Seeking the much-needed support can be like walking a tightrope, especially when psychiatry is one of the options.
Pessimistic psychiatrists have put their attention on the natural fears, uncertainties, insecurities and stresses exhibited by individuals during the pandemic.
These normal reactions to abnormal conditions have been misinterpreted and redefined before being categorised as so-called mental illnesses requiring “treatment”.
For an industry that purports to have mental health as its focus, the negative narrative from the psychiatric fraternity is indicative of an industry that appears to be more interested in the discovery and continuation of mental illness.
It represents a dwindling spiral for some unsuspecting citizens who turned to mental health services for help but who then found themselves involuntarily detained and forcibly treated with mind-altering drugs.
Whatever the life situation, psychiatrists take sets of behavioural and emotional characteristics linked to different situations and manufacture a psychiatric label.
Psychiatrists even have a label for those experiencing difficulties as we return to some kind of normality following the pandemic.
They are calling it “adjustment disorder”, but instead of being useful or therapeutic, it only adds to the junk science and psychobabble that puts psychiatry in a category all of its own, setting it apart from real medicine.
For many, psychiatric labels don’t peel off. After a diagnosis, a person can find themselves on prescribed drugs such as antidepressants or anti-anxiety drugs for many years. The drugs simply mask a person’s problems, creating a false impression that something therapeutic is happening.
Rather than accepting the negative psychiatric narrative, it would be better to adopt an optimistic outlook, while spreading some positivity to our fellow man with a word of encouragement, a listening ear as needed or even the simplicity of a smile.
Brian Daniels. Citizens Commission on Human Rights, East Grinstead.
Show some evidence of an all-loving God
Sir, – In reply to Duncan Cromb’s letter I very much respect his beliefs, but they are only beliefs.
He has no evidence to back up his claims that God is eternal or he is all-loving.
The burden of proof lies on someone making these claims. I am not saying I do not believe in God(s), I am saying there is no positive evidence to suggest there is one.
Not all suffering and deaths are caused by man’s sin, natural disasters and drought being two main factors.
Can an all-loving God not prevent these things from happening?
For as long as I have known the age of the Earth is 4.5 billion years – I have not heard anything to the contrary.
Sam Graves. Strathisla Road, West Ferry.
Cost of NHS staff refusing to be vaccinated should not be taxpayers’ burden
Sir, – Thousands of NHS staff have protested their right to refuse to be vaccinated against Covid.
Some politicians support the idea that mandatory vaccination of these public employees should be halted.
The argument over “freedom to choose” versus mandatory vaccination is centred on patient safety.
However, there are other factors to consider in this debate.
We know that vaccination does not prevent anyone vaccinated or unvaccinated from contracting or spreading the virus. Undoubtedly, the vaccination does give the majority of the population protection against becoming seriously ill and reducing the number of deaths from Covid.
It appears that all workers who expect to work in the NHS without being vaccinated also expect, should they become ill, that their absence from work will be covered by their colleagues. Those unfortunate enough to develop long Covid will require long-term sick leave. These absences will add to the burden of overstretched colleagues.
Additionally, the financial burden of sickness payments to NHS employees exercising their right to choose not to be vaccinated is passed directly to taxpayers.
We read of patients who are desperately waiting on lifesaving treatments for non-Covid illnesses. Others have their quality of life and ability to work taken away from them as they to wait for the backlog to clear.
Is it morally right that those same patients have to pay the bill for the sickness absence of those who demand the right to choose to refuse the vaccination? Ikea and Next are protecting shareholders from footing the bill.
Perhaps it is time for governments to start protecting rights of patients and their families from this financial burden too?
Fiona McClymont. Camus Place, Craigton of Monikie.
A matter of faith to save the world
Sir, – If God had not given us the intellect and will to choose between loving and adoring him or to not recognise him, then free will would not exist and we would be robots.
The very fact that faith is required when accepting God, and that we are capable of faith, makes God’s existence more likely.
He has also given us a desire to seek the truth and many leave no stone unturned to find it.
Recently, there have been three events which the Vatican has not yet ruled on as miracles, which show human flesh growing on sacred hosts which are kept in each Catholic church after communion at Mass.
Scientists have confirmed that the blood group of this tissue is identical to the group of the Shroud of Turin and the face cloth of a man who was crucified and buried where Jewish law required a separate covering of the face and the shroud.
Regarding the claim of wars and religion, Atheistic Marxism in Russia and in the killing fields of Cambodia killed more than all the wars of the 20th Century.
Russia has built 37,000 churches since the fall of communism.
We need a belief in God to stop us puny humans from destroying our world.
Philip Kearns. Grove Road, Dundee.
Coincidence may well beat the odds
Sir, – I wonder if Boris Johnston had a bet on the winner of Saturday’s 1.45 race at Ascot: Unexpected Party?
M Cameron. Oakbank Road, Guildtown.
All to do with how you bob your head
Sir, – I thought I once knew what constituted a lie, a mistruth if you will.
However, since the new vocabulary of Westminster, I am no longer sure. There is some subtle new dimension to the reality of fact that as yet eludes me. With Westminster, I mistakenly thought that the lying in winter, in spring, in summer and autumn, were indeed lies, but they were not!
Someday, the new truth may dawn on me. The answer, I think, must lie in the way a lie is said that makes it true. Perhaps, with conviction, or constant iteration, an existential influence lingers as a curtain before a dimly lit truth, which does not strut upon the stage, but hides shyly in the wings? Or, the past can bear no truth.
For example, why did the chicken cross the road? So that it could say “I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t” with its head bobbing assertively all the while.
Leslie Isles Milligan. Myrtlehall Gardens, Dundee.
