AS I sit down to write this, my background noise is filled with sentiments and outpourings for Barcelona. Rightly so. More lives lost and lives shattered, as terrorism strikes at the very heart of a community and steals loved ones and futures.

My social media reflects the tragedy and Catalan/Spanish flags adorn those who want to be supportive. They really feel the pain of those affected and in turn they empathise. The candle image is on repeat as I scroll.

Last Saturday, a terrorist used a car to plough into innocent people in Charlottesville, USA. He killed one and seriously injured many more. On Thursday, in two separate attacks in Spain, the exact same thing happened. More lives were lost and more injured souls fight for their lives. So what is the difference? I can see none. I see them both as the acts they were intended to be: Terrorism.

So I Google “Spain terror attack”. There is page after page with headlines of “Barcelona and Cambrils Terror Attacks”. It is uniform, almost – the wording changing only in the minutest form. The story is clearly being well covered. No real facts are missing and the headlines have it captured perfectly. This is exactly what I expect. My social media is a reflection of this.

But I then Google “USA terror attack” but what comes up is surprising. I’m faced with a litany of pages and headlines for terrorism in general, with a few about the 9/11 attack. These continue until a second page where ... the two attacks in Spain are headlined. What happened to Charlottesville?

Finally, I Google “Charlottesville terror attack” but find something striking about the headlines linked to this search. NBC News: “Charlottesville Rally Turns Deadly”; The Guardian: “Man charged with murder after driving into anti-far-right protestors”; The Sun: “One killed as car ploughs into counter-protestors”; NY Post: “Scores injured, one dead as car ploughs into protestors”.

So, from the headlines, this is not a terror attack but either a murder or possibly just an accident as it was “the car” that caused the death it seems – not the driver.

This use of language may seem subtle to some, but not to me and many more. Why is it still going on? Why are our press organisations being allowed to use language to set a false tone?

Is it that they see only terrorism when it has a brown face? The rags that spout hate yet pay little or no tax have a readership that is solid: they seemed to have plugged the haemorrhaging of readers by stoking fear and promoting their bile.

This is a striking hypocrisy. Is it that all those that read and believe are blind to it? Do they choose not to see or is it the subtle use of language that is drawing them in?

I do not believe for a heartbeat that those who saw or heard about the Charlottesville attack were not sympathetic. A life lost, more injured, scarred and affected by terror. But where were the candles, or the flags on the corner of the profile pics? Where are the flags, candles and banners for all of those affected by terror? Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, India, Somalia, Egypt and Libya – the top 10 countries affected by terror.

Is it okay when the US and UK inflict terror? Are we justified in ignoring every other country and only mourning for those who may look a little more like us?

Both of these recent atrocities in Spain and the US were terrorism. Both are attacks by right-wing extremists whose brand of fascism may be a little different but that’s just branding, it is still fascism. The similarity is striking, yet our media don’t want this recognised. We should all be asking ourselves the reasons for this and demanding to know who it is that they are actually protecting from this information.
Lee-Anne Menzies
Via email

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Cleaner, greener, smarter future is possible 

THE Westminster government has finally sold off the Green Investment Bank, and with a £186 million profit. So that’s all good then?

No it isn’t. The bank was set up to aid the research, development and real world application of things like renewable energy projects and new bio-science industries which can struggle to gain funding from the general banking sector, which operates on a very short timescale.

In Orkney we are witnessing the creation of a vibrant economy based on the research, development and grid-connected renewable energy systems, which is significantly boosting our local economy and is encouraging development of the smart grid and new energy storage techniques.

These new industries can take decades to come to fruition, and whoever has the foresight to make that long-term investment will reap the rewards of high income, high skill employment and a new economy as we transition from one based on fossil carbon fuels.

The existing knowledge and abilities of our engineering sector are being put to good use supporting and building these new industries, creating and preserving vital employment.

Holyrood has a good record of supporting R&D in these areas but I think we need to go much further. I take the view that Scotland should form a Scottish Green Investment Bank to future-proof our economy. We could fund this bank from central and local government funds, and from giving Scottish citizens the ability to invest our savings in our economic future.

A cleaner, greener, smarter future is there for the taking. We just need the will and self-belief as a nation to take it.
Jon Southerington
Deerness, Orkney

GREG Russell’s report in The National (Air pollution can increase people’s risk of infection, August 18) on the link between air pollution and illness refers to “car-choked streets” but most of our cities’ top pollution blackspots are actually bus-choked. The environmental damage caused by the change from trams to buses in our cities in the 1950s far outweighs the impact of the Beeching railway closures. The former shifted hundreds of millions of urban passenger journeys per annum from electric to diesel vehicles; the latter, a fraction of that number of journeys, mostly rural, from steam or diesel trains to diesel buses or petrol cars.

It is therefore puzzling that Greens like Mark Ruskell (The National, August 18) continue to advocate rail line re-openings as an emission-reduction tactic while offering no more than “better buses” – not trams – for cities. Friends of the Earth’s Emilia Hanna also appears to see buses as a solution rather than an integral part of the problem.

This week the SNP/Labour administration in Edinburgh confirmed its plan to extend trams to Leith and Newhaven “subject to a robust business case”. Whatever the strength of the business case, the environmental case for the extension is clear.
Andrew McCracken
Grantown-on-Spey

EAST Dunbartonshire LibDems’ unused 93,000 leaflets must weigh at least a couple of hundredweight – surely someone must remember taking them to a recycling point (Jo Swinson challenged, The National, August 18).

As a resident of Edinburgh West it seems almost impossible to believe the LibDems did not manage to deliver all their leaflets here, unless our letterboxes were already stuffed by their twice daily deliveries.
John Jamieson
South Queensferry

IN response to your article about the RSPB challenge to an offshore windfarm in the Forth I must say, I am also opposed to offshore wind developments in Scottish waters.

Offshore wind is still twice as expensive as onshore wind. Scotland already has more wind-farm capacity per capita than any other country. Its subsidised development by mainly non-Scottish companies, with a quite small proportion of the investment money actually being spent in Scotland, means a Scottish resource is being exploited for great profit with little real return to Scotland. The community benefit is being paid for by higher electricity prices, including many who struggle to pay their rising electricity costs.
Nick Dekker
Via email