Dear Editor,
I have every sympathy with Lionel Bibby (Viewpoints 5th December) when he talks of the
dangers of nuclear power and the difficulty of trying to dispose of it’s toxic waste products
safely.
However, by calling for coal fired power stations rather than anything else, he is suggesting
that the kind of pollution blanketing parts of China would be OK here. Has he seen the
pictures of Bejing blanketed in smog from the fumes of coal fired power stations?
On top of this, burning coal releases large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
This will increase global warming and the climate change that we are beginning to suffer the
first effects of. Carbon dioxide takes a hundred years to decay in the atmosphere so we need
to immediately begin a massive move to renewable power and close coal and gas energy
production. The United nations has reported that the plans being negotiated in Paris at the
moment will mean going beyond the target of 2 degrees of global warming and reaching 2.7
degrees. That is if all the plans work and every country carries out their promised plans. I
wouldn’t bet on it.
The present Tory Prime Minister promised the “greenest government ever” but has cut
support for renewable energy to the bone. The Torys favour gas and dangerous nuclear, as the
future for power generation. Yet gas fired power stations produce more carbon dioxide and
and there is a heavy carbon footprint for uranium ore mining and fuel processes.
The worst of climate change will come in the next decades, but we are having a foretaste with
the Cumbrian “once in a hundred years” storms occurring twice in six years. We are
providing a dangerous world for our children and grandchildren.
Yours sincerely
Sam Darby
Burnage Green Party