Tidal power can solve energy crisis – Yorkshire Post Letters

IT is a pleasure to see the ‘greening’ of conversations everywhere, with technical terms like ‘carbon footprint’ and ‘sustainability’ popping up more regularly in the most unlikely of settings.

This trend has, however, been accompanied by the push-back that is often the case when progressive ideas gather momentum (by some who have reasons to fight against the change).

The latest example of this phenomenon is the claim that all ‘this greening nonsense’ is just a cover for more taxation and oppression of the poor – despite the fact that it is now clearly understood that too much human activity is affecting the climate, with dire consequences.

The science is accepted. This has put the denial brigade on the back foot, so it is busy regrouping with new tactics. I do have sympathy with those who feel that the discussion should be about more than climate. We spend our time gazing at the weather and this distracts from other issues, such as the appalling losses of biodiversity and mass extinctions, equally important for the survival of our own species.

What we desperately need now is for the ‘greening’ of our conversations to be accompanied by the rapid transformation of our whole economy.

Sadly, figures from the Office for National Statistics show that ‘the green economy’ more or less flatlined between 2014 and 2020.

Employment in the low-carbon and renewable energy sectors – which include manufacturing, energy supply and construction – actually fell. This predated the pandemic and the accompanying recession.

Our local Conservative MPs need to admit that this failure has been on their watch, and push for the revolution urgently to speed up and be brought to our district.

From: Lynne Hibberd, Keighley.

SINCE the 1990s, my late husband, a chief engineer in the Merchant Navy, pointed out at every opportunity that the power of the tide should be harnessed to generate electricity. This is an obvious and entirely reliable, renewable resource; twice a day, it relentlessly demonstrates its dependability along the Yorkshire coast.

Our entrepreneurial industrial forebears of 150 years ago experimented using engineering and science to solve the undoubted problems of their time – where are their equivalents of today? They were not metropolitans but practical industrialists, moving technology forward with the resources to hand, aspirational and proud.

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