We must limit climate change and protect environment as we recover from virus

WE must make sure our household finances and the local economy recover from the pandemic as soon as possible.

This must be done without forgetting that the use of oil and gas are committing us to higher temperatures and more extreme weather in future.

While we are in isolation, some of us may find strength in reminding our elected representatives that job and training opportunities could be created that will also help to protect our natural world.

For example, money put aside for environmentally damaging road building across North Yorkshire would be better spent on developing local employment and skills in renewable power technologies and heat pumps.

Once lockdown is eased, most of us will be able to do our bit to support local businesses by calling in at shops and cafes as we continue to walk and cycle.

Transport is the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the Harrogate District, so leaving our cars at home would also help us to limit climate change and biodiversity loss.

From: Dr Andy Asquith, Massey University, New Zealand.

GREETINGS from a Yorkshireman on the other side of the world.

Just a note to correct something in your front page leader ‘VE Day 75’ (The Yorkshire Post, May 8).

You make reference to Sir Winston Churchill making his radio broadcast in 1945. In fact Churchill wasn’t knighted until 1953 – ergo, he was simply Mr Winston Churchill.

A minor error in an otherwise poignant piece.

From: John Edwards, Carlisle.

AM I missing something, but were not both Nicola Sturgeon and Sir Keir Starmer pressing for a plan to end the lockdown and move on just a week or so ago? Now they seem to be arguing caution and for the lockdown to continue. Why are the aggressive journalists not making more of this situation? Seems that it is fine to continue to criticise the Government and not those who do the criticising!

From: Paul Morley, Long Preston, Skipton.

HALF the country seems to think the lockdown has gone on too long and the other half think it needs to go on a lot longer. Boris Johnson, his Cabinet and their health advisors may as well just close their eyes and stick a pin in the calendar for the date to lift lockdown.

Editor’s note: first and foremost - and rarely have I written down these words with more sincerity - I hope this finds you well.

Almost certainly you are here because you value the quality and the integrity of the journalism produced by The Yorkshire Post’s journalists - almost all of which live alongside you in Yorkshire, spending the wages they earn with Yorkshire businesses - who last year took this title to the industry watchdog’s Most Trusted Newspaper in Britain accolade.

And that is why I must make an urgent request of you: as advertising revenue declines, your support becomes evermore crucial to the maintenance of the journalistic standards expected of The Yorkshire Post. If you can, safely, please buy a paper or take up a subscription. We want to continue to make you proud of Yorkshire’s National Newspaper but we are going to need your help.

Postal subscription copies can be ordered by calling 0330 4030066 or by emailing [email protected]. Vouchers, to be exchanged at retail sales outlets - our newsagents need you, too - can be subscribed to by contacting subscriptions on 0330 1235950 or by visiting www.localsubsplus.co.uk where you should select The Yorkshire Post from the list of titles available.

If you want to help right now, download our tablet app from the App / Play Stores. Every contribution you make helps to provide this county with the best regional journalism in the country.

Sincerely. Thank you.

James Mitchinson

Editor