COP26 and climate change is Boris Johnson’s biggest folly – Yorkshire Post Letters

GIVEN the perfectly predictable, and predicted, energy crisis of the last few months, I have come to the conclusion that Boris Johnson regards himself as the “Jolly Net-Zero Prankster”, laughing at us as we struggle to find the money to pay for his 
net-zero dystopia.

Nobody but a prankster would destroy the UK’s existing energy infrastructures (gas, oil, petrol and coal) without building sufficient and reliable replacements.

But where are they? Wind isn’t it, as we found out in August and September, when we had to re-start mothballed coal-fired generation to avoid black-outs because of low wind.

Tory MPs must be in on the joke too, because the Government’s own figures show that no more electricity will be produced in 2040 than in 2020. And that’s after we’ve supposedly converted to battery electric cars and home electric heat pumps. In reality, we probably need at least double the existing electricity output.

In the meantime, pleading to Vladimir Putin’s Russia for gas to keep us going is absurd when we have decades of natural gas under Lancashire.

But Jolly Johnson has banned that too, even as an interim measure.

He denies he will kick our doors down to steal our reliable gas boilers, but his ban on new gas boilers replacing old ones after 2035 does exactly that.

Nobody can be this incompetent. Therefore it is deliberate. What a jolly prank!

From: Mr A Shipman, Harley Gardens, Leeds.

THE increasing number of private cars on our roads brings to mind the WW2 posters, stating: “Is your journey really necessary?”

Quite often these vehicles have only been driven to and from the supermarket or used for the school run. Most of us live within close reach of a railway station or bus route, yet the soaring cost of fuel does not appear to make these options attractive to drivers. Nothing short of a tsunami will force these vehicles off our roads.

What are things going to be like in five or 10 years does not bear thinking about, not to mention the irreparable damage to the environment.

From: Clark Cross, Springfield Road, Linlithgow.

HEAT pumps are being hailed as “saving the planet”. Only if you have a spare £7,000 to £30,000. Heat pumps work at a lower temperature than gas boilers and need larger radiators and improved insulation, thus increasing the cost. I have just replaced my gas boiler for £3,000, so before 2035, when new gas boilers are scheduled to be banned, people should do the same. Other countries are building coal-fired plants, extracting gas and oil and driving 1.4bn petrol/diesel vehicles.

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