Do climate sceptics think Sir David Attenborough or Prince Charles are 'eco warriors'? - Yorkshire Post Letters

I REFER to the letter from Dick Lindley (The Yorkshire Post, February 7), “Ordinary folk pay price for eco nonsense”.

Does Mr Lindley include very knowledgeable people such as Sir David Attenborough as being “eco warriors” or Prince Charles, who has a great understanding of climate change which affects all of us?

I agree that it is us ordinary people who will suffer because energy costs are out of control. But we cannot just go back to coal mining. Most mines are now flooded with water. Remember who it was who closed most of the coal mines? The Tory PM Mrs Thatcher.

Also in the 1980s, the government increased the price of gas to consumers, prior to privatising British Gas in order to attract investors. This was hardly caring for people.

Previous letters from Mr Lindley show that he was/is very much in favour of fracking for shale gas. Again, anyone who knows about this industry will tell us that it takes a long time to set up fracking wells and then when one well is soon exhausted, so another and another well must be drilled. This is beside the damage which fracking causes to the countryside, people’s lives and water aquifers. Once damaged by pollution, these can never be restored.

In Ryedale, where we live, the petro chemical company INEOS still holds PEDL licences to frack for shale gas. This gas would be used to produce plastics, not gas for consumers.

I am so saddened by Mr Lindley’s turn of phrase in describing people who care and are worried about climate change as “you lot”.

This Government could do so much to help energy consumers. They should introduce a windfall tax on fossil fuel producers now. Shell’s obscene £12bn profits will please only their share holders. Boris Johnson should abolish the five per cent VAT on energy as he promised would happen after Brexit.

VAT was introduced in the 1970s to replace purchase tax. It was mainly to be implemented on luxury goods.

Heating our homes is not a luxury, it is a right.

From: Clark Cross,Springfield Road, Linlithgow.

Martin Hemmingway obviously hates fossil fuels and nuclear but offers no viable alternatives other than saying; “Devote our resources and energies to the range of renewables that together can provide energy security”. Security? That is a laugh.

Gas power plants provided the UK with 41.7 per cent of its electricity over the last 12 months and nuclear provided 16.4 per cent. Perhaps Mr Hemmingway’s green tinted glasses did not pick up that wind only provided 18.9 per cent and solar 4.0 per cent.