The rules of the road apply to all road users
Every day I see cyclists, motorcyclists, scooters and pedestrians all breaking the law by driving at excessive speeds, going up one-way streets the wrong way, ignoring traffic lights.
Yet you do a few miles per hour over the speed limit and the police will have you.
And, like me, after driving 60 years you get sent on a speed awareness course for doing about 4mph over the limit.
Yes, I broke the law and expect to pay for that misdemeanour but why are the police deliberately ignoring the other road users?
This is totally unfair and discriminatory and it’s time it was stopped.
The law should apply to everybody and not just car drivers who have become a cash cow for the local councils over the years.
It’s time this racket was stopped.
Keith YorkNewbury
I have questions over the IPCC statement
Professor Mike Morecroft (‘It’s time to move on over climate change facts’, Newbury Weekly News, Thursday, December 12) invites more discussion on how we respond to climate threats, less discussion of “issues that were resolved years ago” and quotes the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) summary statement: “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.”
Given the Elizabethans, and doubtless earlier cultures, understood that chopping down forests could alter rainfall patterns, thereby altering climate, I say a statement that humans change, if not specifically warm, those realms is pretty much a given – no modern science required to support that.
So, why does the IPCC statement not read: “It is unequivocal that anthropogenic CO2 has warmed the atmosphere…”?
Is it because the statement covers those other factors which may be as, or more, significant than CO2 towards changing the climate?
Sensibly, the IPCC does not propose that eliminating CO2 emissions halts climate change.
I ask because Ed Miliband is reconfiguring the UK’s electricity generation specifically to curtail CO2 emissions, whilst telling us this will make our electricity cheaper and more secure.
My view, shared with many reputable scientists and engineers, is that Mr Miliband achieves the opposite – more expensive and less secure electricity, with the emission reduction and its impact barely measurable.
On this basis alone, it is entirely right and proper that we question the ‘why’, as well as the ‘how’.
We should also ask why there seems to be complicit silence from climate scientists and net zero proponents – such as the BBC – towards robustly challenging Mr Miliband’s assertions.
Is there political or reputational bias to avoid doing so, and if so, can we not conclude there may also be bias within the IPCC?
Why, for instance, is Mr Miliband perpetually allowed to exclude the construction and operating costs of his necessary backup system from his non-existent cost-benefit analysis?
We should not move on to discussing why we’re supposed to need net zero while too many background questions remain unanswered, simple examples being:
1) Why does the most recent IPCC summary report include nothing about climate change prior to the industrial revolution, to help policy makers understand variability which is not related to ‘human influence’?
2) I’ve no doubt Prof Morecroft has been diligent in his work but this does not confirm the climate change industry as free of bias.
So, how much bias – be this confirmation, unconscious or political – has been driving the IPCC activities?
I fully support measures to protect and enhance biodiversity (which is not what stopping hydrocarbon energy achieves) and think that reallocating some of the hundreds of billions being wasted on wind and solar could be used to provide much greater ecological benefit, more affordable energy and protect our economy.
Lastly, petrostates such as Saudi Arabia may have changed to accept the IPCC summary statements for political expediency – following the fashion – rather than wholesale acceptance of the concept.
Hamish McCrackenAdeys Close, Newbury
Let’s give more respect to climate scientists
Climate scientists are often criticised, and their work misrepresented on this letters page.
For example, the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide from 280 to over 400 parts per million since the industrial revolution is an increase of at least 43 per cent, not 0.012 per cent as recently claimed.
The atmosphere now retains an enormous 1,000,000,000,000,000 watts more heat energy compared to pre-industrial times.
This is equivalent to more than one million large power plants operating continuously (Perplexity AI), or the accumulation of more than three billion Hiroshima atomic bombs of heat (Skeptical Science).
As a result, it is likely that the planet is warming its fastest rate compared to any time over the past half billion years ago.
This speed of warming is putting the world at risk of a mass extinction event.
For more information, please see recent work by David Attenborough, such as his book and Netflix documentary, A Life on Our Planet.
We can each choose whether or not we accept the consensus of more than 99 per cent of thousands of highly-skilled scientists studying the possible collapse of our living world, but it’s not necessary to denigrate them.
Dr Pat WatsonEast Garston Eco Group