Climate change; open your eyes to reality Bernard Ingham – Yorkshire Post Letters

From: Coun Ann Forsaith (Green Party), Leeds City Council.
Members of Extinction Rebellion have been staging a number of protests.Members of Extinction Rebellion have been staging a number of protests.
Members of Extinction Rebellion have been staging a number of protests.

THERE have been a surprising number of times that I have agreed with Sir Bernard Ingham recently, but reading his article on Extinction Rebellion was certainly not one of them (The Yorkshire Post, September 3).

If our Government was pledged to eliminate fossil fuels, then why are they continuing to build more roads? Of course we can generate all the energy we need from renewable resources; it just takes the political will and leaders who do not have a vested interest in the fossil fuel industry.

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Extinction Rebellion is not ‘‘stuffed with comfortably off middle class warriors’’ – how would Sir Bernard know? Has he ever attended an XR meeting? XR is far from misguided.

Extinction Rebellion protesters march across Westminster Bridge.Extinction Rebellion protesters march across Westminster Bridge.
Extinction Rebellion protesters march across Westminster Bridge.

XR members give of their time, comfort, and sometimes even their jobs and personal freedom, to take actions to wake up people and institutions to the existential threat of climate change and breakdown.

Please open your eyes too, Sir Bernard – I am sure you must really accept that the climate is changing – and please take back your words about those of us who are trying to make sure our descendants, and yours too by the way, have a habitable planet to live on.

From: Mike Daw, Marlborough Square, Ilkley.

MY jaw dropped when I read Sir Bernard Ingham’s opinion piece “Don’t let Extinction Rebellion’s antics wreck our fragile economy” (The Yorkshire Post, September 2).

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Is this really the same Bernard Ingham who was right-hand man to our former leader Maggie Thatcher? The Iron Lady had many faults but, being from a scientific background, she well understood climate change.

Some may remember that she gave one of the first major speeches by a world leader on the topic in 1990 when she said: “The danger of global warming is as yet unseen, but real enough for us to make changes and sacrifices, so that we do not live at the expense of future generations.”

Presumably, Sir Bernard is not acquainted with the science, which is even clearer now than it was 30 years ago.

From: Helen Steward, Ilkley.

I WAS shocked to see that your paper had given space to an opinion piece by Sir Bernard Ingham which continues to peddle a number of long-discredited misapprehensions over climate change (The Yorkshire Post, September 2).

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That Sir Bernard has not noticed much change in the weather since he was a lad is neither here nor there, so far as the realities of climate change are concerned. No one should think they can refute the verdicts of numerous international scientific investigations with a few impressionistic personal memories.

It is beyond doubt that the earth’s climate is changing more rapidly than it has ever done. However, you can’t determine this by focusing on the UK climate alone, which we all know has large natural variability. You need to look across the globe at average sea temperatures, the extent of sea ice from year to year, and so on, rather than trying to extrapolate from personal memories of your own country.

In any case, Sir Bernard is wrong even about the UK. It has been established that rainfall has become more intense here in recent years, and studies have shown that spring begins three to four weeks earlier than it did in the mid-century. Others more observant than him have noticed such changes occurring over the course of their lifetime.

I, for one, am delighted that Extinction Rebellion will continue to try to focus our attention on this issue. Please stop facilitating climate change denial.

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Thank you

James Mitchinson

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