Letters to the National, December 10: Large wind farms are part of the mix

She asserts big is bad, small is good, public is good, private is bad. Home insulation good, restoration of peat and growing tress are good, shareholders bad, “people” good.

Unpicking Carolyn’s views take patience. Supportive communities in Fort Augustus, Lairg and Bonar Bridge are due considerable understanding for the loss of community benefits they have been robbed of by remote desktop bureaucrats who invented “wild land”.

We need to understand the model of big commercial projects stems from London governments that decreed that renewables obligation certificates (ROCs) would develop capacity. Well, they are partly right. Scotland has produced 50 per cent of our domestic electricity needs today from clean power. However achieving 100 per cent by 2020 has been hit on the head. ROCs ended a year early, feed-in tariffs slashed for community renewables and solar power: all victims.

Small-scale community projects are part of the mix but even Carolyn would have to agree a one-size-fits-all rejecting commercial size projects won’t meet our crying need to get clean sources for developing electric-powered cars and replace coal and gas-fired power stations.

The big power companies stem from Thatcher’s privatisation. We can change that with a partnership between democratic government with strict environmental rules, and the social clauses such as Tom Johnstone used so well in the Hydro Board, and the utilities, when Scotland controls energy policy, not London.

We need home insulation and a major push to install 1.2Gw of wind each year to 2020 to keep on target. Offshore wind will come along, as will tidal power. We should not take a cut-and-paste approach to a key job-provider and insurance for our energy security.

If you move on from Perthshire to the far north the focus on green power subtly changes. People become the most endangered species, wild land is conservation by remote command of remote NGOs, SNH and the courts. Clearances Country is the result of this deep social injustice.

I suggest onshore wind deserves its place alongside land, sea and sun as the resources we need to sustain ourselves on a troubled, climate change-prone planet.

Rob Gibson SNP MSP, Wick

Should the Turner prize win itself?

NO disrespect to any of the nominated candidates but the Turner Prize for Art should nominate itself for this weirdest of awards. Not only is it trying to turn art into anything, it is also trying to turn art into everything, and vice-versa necessarily. So this being so it surely follows that the Turner Prize for Art is a top candidate for its own award.

Just after tapping this out on the keyboard I tilted a glass of orange juice to my lips and speculated about taking a selfie of this, putting it on social media, maybe phoning somebody who could be scouting for next year’s Turner candidates, and well, who knows? But then I corrected this diversionary drift of thought and decided it didn’t stand a chance against my earlier thought that the Turner Prize must at some point win its own award. I am more than surprised it hasn’t done so already.

Ian Johnstone, Peterhead

I REALLY enjoyed Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh’s article (Politicians have a duty to set the right tone for a national debate, The National, December 9) on Donald Trump, which explained so well why the man’s views are fascist and dangerous. With his latest ‘ban Muslims’ rhetoric, Trump embodies extreme intolerance and also has a well-known history of misogyny and racism. On this basis, will the Scottish Government follow the lead of the mayor of St Petersburg in Florida, and publicly announce that Trump is not welcome in Scotland?

Kathryn Robertson, Leeds

YOUR report (Mackay is beset by calls for Forth Bridge inquiry, The National, December 9) is another sign of the desperation setting in to the opposition parties at Holyrood as the 2016 election approaches.

Bereft of policies of their own they have decided that the SNP Scottish Government is to be held responsible for anything and everything in the hope of drawing attention from their own sorry record in government or opposition.

John Jamieson, South Queensferry

IN a few days I will travel from Stonehaven to Edinburgh. Due to the current traffic disruption I will go by train. From the coach window, while crossing the iconic Forth Bridge, I’ll be treated to a spectacular view: mighty pillars of a half-finished new bridge rising from the water in close proximity to the existing bridge, sadly closed because its structure begins to fail after just 51 years – two-fifths of the lifetime of the 19th century Forth Bridge. And while taking in the view I will spare a grateful thought for our forefathers who invested wisely and allowed their engineers to apply their skill to the benefit of future generations.

Regina Erich, Stonehaven

I’D not heard of Tyson Fury until I read Tuesday’s National. I don’t go on Twitter either. I’d certainly class him as a male chauvinist from his comments about women which you quote. The bulk of the article, however, is lambasting him for his homophobic remarks which aren’t quoted. What can the man possibly have said that The National is afraid to quote? The only hint is in a quoted remark where he links homosexuality, abortion and paedophilia in an unclear way and the reader is left to draw their own conclusions as to what he may have meant.

You appear to be saying that if someone doesn’t toe your line on what is acceptable to say, then they should effectively be excluded from society or at least shouldn’t be nominated for awards.

“I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it” obviously belongs to an age now past. Muffling of free speech is one of the steps on the road to an authoritarian regime.

There is however a hint of what may cause offence. You quote him as saying: “I follow Jesus and I believe everything he says.”

There is rightly reluctance today to offend our minority population of Muslims but it is often forgotten Christians, Jews and Muslims all accept the Old Testament as a holy book. Muslims and Jews accept that Jesus was a prophet.

Genesis in the Old Testament tells the story of God’s destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah because of sinful behaviour and Leviticus 18 gives instructions on unlawful sexual relations. Reading between the lines, I think this is what Tyson was referring to.

We’re all human beings. We have a responsibility towards each other which we must accept or descend into anarchy. We may think someone is wrong but we can still love them, or if that’s too big a step we can at least respect them as fellow human beings.

The picture I get of Tyson is of someone honestly trying to articulate his beliefs, knowing that not everyone will agree with him. I think you’re too harsh with him.

Catriona Grigg, Embo, Sutherland

REGARDING your editorial (SPOTY: A bigot like Fury has no place on award shortlist, The National, December 8): regardless of the rights and wrongs of this, there is one issue that should be highlighted. I refer to the voting system. A couple of years ago when AP McCoy was shortlisted, and eventually won, Clare Balding went public on various media, exhorting “all lovers of horse racing” to phone in multiple votes on his behalf.

At the time I contacted BBC Scotland to complain, firstly about a BBC employee encouraging cheating, and secondly about a voting system that allowed it. I have yet to receive a reply. And the voting system is unchanged, as far as I’m aware.

Archie McArthur, Edinburgh

ROY Pederson rather makes my case in his letter about the Dunoon-Gourock Ferry(Letters, The National, December 8).

“Fourteen souls per crossing” indeed. It is an appalling service in any kind of bad weather and frequently terrifying at night when it does sail in windy conditions. It quite often sails empty on those occasions. It also very regularly misses the train connection and there is entirely inadequate provision for disabled boarding and disembarking.

It’s a service designed in fact to fail. On good days, however, it regularly sails completely full. I made no attack on Western Ferries. It has been handed a goldmine and a shovel and like any efficient private company it is digging energetically.

But it took on no giant. The CalMac giant was decapitated and quite deliberately destroyed on its previously profitable Dunoon Gourock crossing. Of course you wont see Western Ferries taking over any of the loss-making routes.

There is no suggestion that a state-run ferry is being sought for the route as I made perfectly clear in my article so Mr Pederson has obviously misread it.

Perhaps he should come down to Dunoon and talk to some ferry commuters.

Dave McEwan Hill, Sandbank, Argyll

A H-UILE turas, anns na laithean mu dheireadh, a chluinneas mi plèan a’ dol seachad os mo chionn tha e a’ cuir gaoir nam fheòil agus mi a’ smaoineachadh air na creutairean truagh ann an Syria.

Tha iomhaigh, nach di-chuimhnich mi gu sìorraidh, a’ tighinn ugam air an oidhche uamhasach sin a thuit na bombaichean air Bruach Chluaidh.

Cha robh mise ach nam leanabh beag aig an àm agus cha robh mi a’ tuigsinn an uair sin dè bu choireach gun robh an t-adhar na theine agus fuaim uamhasach mun cuairt is m’ athair agus mo mhathair agus deòir na sùilean agus grèim teann ac’ orm fhèin agus mo bhràthair.

Chaidh innse dhomh nuair a bha mi na bu shine gun robh sinn air a bhith an teis meadhain a’ chogaidh a bha a’ dol a chuir crìoch air cogaidhean gu bràth tuilleadh. Nach sinn a bha faoin.

Mar a thuirt am bàrd,

“Man’s inhumanity to man

Makes countless thousands mourn.”

Chrissie Bannerman, Balmaha